So I’ve got a clogged toilet. It drains (ever so) slowly. I can’t get plungers to make a seal so the water keeps squooshing out the corners where the round plunger doesn’t seal. I’ve tried and auger w/o effect. I borrowed a friends ‘super’ plunger. It has a large bellows area with a ‘force cup’ that’s suppose to fit in the hole, but again, the hole is square so there’s no seal.
Are there plungers for square outlet toilets or how do you get a seal with a round plunger?
PC
Have you tried the job on the left in this photo?
Empty the toilet of water. Put a heavy coat of Vaseline on the plunger seal and try it. You can also unfold a coat hanger and put the hook part down there to see if that works.
Actually, not that specific kind, but I did use this. I originally went to Home Depot to buy the kind you showed, but the bells and cups were too narrow to make a seal on the square base of the toilet outlet.
One more fact I noticed that confuses me, is that after an hour or so, it flushes pretty well the first time and then backs up again on subsequent flushes.
Could that mean that the clog is farther back?
PC
Two things that I would try in your case. One is using a plunger the 'opposite" way (actually, I read somewhere that this is actually the correct way, as doing it the ‘normal’ way may ruin your wax seal), put the plunger in, slowly press it down and let it back up to fill it with water, now slowly push it back down, untill it seals as well as it’s going to, and then pull back HARD. The idea is to pull the clog back up to the surface. In practice, it just seems to get it moving, IME, just getting it to move back and forth will help. Second, you said, water is slowly draining. That’s good, since water is moving past the blockage, chemical warfare might be in order. See what the local hardware store has to offer, be it chemicals or enzymes. Just remember, a plumber isn’t going to want to stick his hand into a toilet full of caustic chemicals, so if it’s REALLY bad, you might want to call in the pros before spending anymore money on it. One last thing. Is anything else stopped up? Nearby sink, etc??? That’ll help isolate where the problem is. If it’s far enough down (which it may be since you said the first flush works fine, you might be able to pull off one of the clean out caps and work from there.
So here’s a conundrum- what I thought was the toilet draining after sitting for some times turns out to be that it flushes every other flush.
. . . . . If I flush and wait for the tank to fill up then flush again and repeat. It will flush almost normally every other flush and not very well on the alternate ones. I’ve no idea why or how that could be. 
It’s amazing the different ways to use a plunger (in the toilet). Some say it needs to seal, others that it doesn’t. Some say plunge quickly, some say slowly. I would guess that a seal would help transmit the pressure changes and so help for tough clogs. At least I know I’m not having much effect with plungers that don’t seal, though I’ve a feeling that’ll be the same if I ever find one that does. (I got the one Joe K recommended and it didn’t seal, either, unfortunately.) The shower and tub in the room drain fine (but I guess they get lower flow rates than the toilet). I tried extending the auger as far as it would go and no change.
I’ll try to find the clean out cap and maybe try there.
PC
-This isn’t the first time I’ve tried to use a round plunger on a toilet with a square outlet and couldn’t get a seal. Has toilet technology outpaced plungers? or vice versa?
I’m confused too, so are you saying that something in the tank is broken and it’s only flushing everyother time (which would be a compleatly separate problem, to be dealt with after the clog is fixed), or are you saying that you can flush once and all appears normal and then you flush again and it’s backed up, wait for it to drain and then it’ll flush normal once, then clog once? If that’s the case, my guess is that the clog is several “pipe feet” away. What’s happening is that the water drains past the clog leaving all that empty space in the pipe, when you flush the first time the water hit’s that clog and fills up the void, but not enough for you to notice, the second flush fills it the rest of the way and backs it up into your toilet. The next question…In between flushes (before the “good” flush) is there water in the bowl. If there is I might be worried (I’m not a plumber so I could be wrong on this). As the water is flowing past the clog, it should create a siphon effect and pull the water out of the bowl (thus emptying the trap as well), if it’s not pulling the water out of the bowl, I would guess that the clog is past the vent (the vent is there partially to make sure that a siphon effect pulls air from the outside, rather then pull water out of the trap (before anyone get’s nitpicky I know that’s not the only reason, but I believe it is one of them)), if the clog is past the trap, you won’t be able to build up pressure with the plunger to break it up. If that’s the case, hopefully there’s a cleanout somewhere you can get at, or you might need a longer snake.
Did this happen all of a sudden? Or are you in a new home? Need to know if its worth presenting my solution.
Sorry, I was away from a computer yesterday. (Happy 4th everyone.)
There’s water in the bowl for each flush and the bowl fills pretty full before going down, if it goes down. Otherwise it starts to form a funnel, but then stops when the water runs out. The tank seems to be fine throughout. It seems to sometimes work better (the bowl does not fill so much before emptying) than others. I’ve also recently noticed some small bubbles coming up from the outlet at the end of the flush (don’t know if they’re new since the clog or I just noticed them).
It’s not a ‘new’ home, though it’s new to me, but it’s an old one. It did happen suddenly and there were some guests over the night before it got clogged.
PC
eureka! i found someone with a similar problem- a toilet bowl with not a round drain- my Kohler toilet has a rectangular, ok- a trapezoidal shaped drain which renders round shaped plumbers helpers ineffective.
i am amazed there is not a plunger that fits these types of toilets? Anyone?
zombie or no
square is less likely to clogged by a log.
maybe Kohler has a trapezoidal shaped plunger as an accessory.
