Preventing Water Damage From An Overflowing Toilet

11/10/2020 (Permalink)

Act fast to stop your toilet overflow and minimize water damage to your home.

When a toilet overflow happens in your home, it can quickly turn into a nightmare regardless of why it happened. When not handled immediately, your home may sustain a large amount of water damage from the toilet overflow and pose a health risk for you to clean up yourself. Here, we will go over what to do immediately after you find water pouring out of your toilet and what you can do to prevent water damage.

What To Do When Your Toilet Overflows

1 | Don’t use any plumbing in your home if you’re not sure what is causing the overflow. 

This is important because depending on the cause of your issue, using a toilet or sink in another part of your home may make the problem become much worse. If your toilet began to overflow immediately after you flushed, the cause is likely just a clog and may be easy to fix yourself. In these cases, you should be fine to use the plumbing in other parts of your home.

If you didn’t flush the toilet and found it suddenly overflowing by itself, there is likely a clog somewhere in your main drain or sewer line of your home. In these cases, running water exiting your home has nowhere to go and backflows to the lowest point which is usually a toilet or shower. Do not use any plumbing when you have a block in the main line to avoid causing additional damage to your home. 

2 | Shut the water off to the toilet.

The first way to do this is to locate the toilet valve on the wall behind your toilet and turn it off to cut the water supply. If you cannot find the valve or it will not turn, the second way to turn off the water is to take the lid off of your toilet tank and lift the float high enough so that the water stops running. If all else fails, you should turn off the main water valve in your home which is usually located near the water heater. 

• If you take all of these steps to turn off the water to the toilet but it continues to overflow, immediately call a plumber. This is a sign that you may not be dealing with a toilet clog, but a sewage backup from your septic tank or your city's septic system.

3 | Clear your clog.

Before anything else, be sure to grab a pair of gloves to wear while unclogging the toilet. Then, grab a bucket and remove a few inches of excess water from the toilet bowl to help prevent water splashing all over you and your bathroom during this process. 

Try the following to clear your toilet clog:

• Plunge the clog - Find a plunger with a flange on the bottom so that it will create a tight seal around the toilet drain hole to efficiently dislodge the clog. Keeping the plunger upright, push up and down vigorously for about 15 to 20 seconds to force water and air into the drain. The toilet may begin to drain itself or require you to flush again to completely clear the clog. Try and use your best judgment before flushing the toilet again to prevent another overflow.
• Snake the drain - A toilet snake is a flexible cable that navigates through the twists and turns of the toilet drain and essentially pulls out whatever is clogging it. These can be rented by the day at your local hardware store. To use, put the hook end of the snake into the toilet bowl and turn the crank on it clockwise to extend the cable down into the drain. When you can't go any further, you've found your clog. When you reach the clog, turn the crank counter clockwise to pull it out of the drain and pour it out into a bucket. Perform this process a few times to be sure you've gotten all of the clog. Then, pour what you have in your bucket back into the toilet in small amounts to properly dispose of it.
• If neither of these work or the second option seems like more than you can (or want) to handle, call a local plumbing professional to do it for you.

4 | Clean up standing water - if safe to do so.

If the water that comes out of your toilet is clean water from a toilet malfunction, you can clean up the water yourself with proper protective equipment. 

If the water from your overflow contained any foreign objects, contaminants, or was from a sewer backup - Do not perform clean up yourself. Contaminated water can make you seriously ill when you come into contact with it as it may contain raw sewage, bacteria, and other microorganisms. In these cases, call a local biohazard and water damage restoration company to properly handle the cleanup. 

Water Damage From Toilet Overflows

Even after you’ve cleaned up the standing water from a toilet overflow yourself and see no visible damage, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Depending on what floor the overflow occurred, how long it flowed, and what type of water it was, it can cause an immense amount of water damage to the following:

• Drywall
• Subfloors
• Flooring
• Ceilings of lower level rooms
• Carpet
• Insulation
• Electrical wiring
• Molding

When moisture or water damage in these areas is unaddressed, your home may suffer from structural damages over time and produce the growth of mold in as little as 48 hours after the overflow. It’s extremely important to completely address water damage to save time and money in the long run! 

When a toilet overflow happens to you, you should call a water damage restoration service that can work directly with your insurance company. 

These companies are sure to remove all water, completely dry your property, and properly clean & sanitize afterwards to ensure your family does not experience health effects and that no mold will grow.

Need Help After A Toilet Overflow in Connecticut? Call SERVPRO - 800-734-3213

SERVPRO of Branford/Shoreline is a 24/7 emergency service specializing in water damage, fire damage, mold remediation and COVID-19 disinfection services. Don't wait for damage to get worse, call SERVPRO to make it "Like it never even happened."