Stuck closet auger

[Rich Hanna]

Background - I'm clearly not a professional.

My wife flushed cucumber pieces down the toilet. Not great results. I tried my closet auger (the shorter kind), but did not clear the clog even though the auger was fully extended. When trying to retrieve the auger, the head got stuck pretty tight somewhere. I tried pulling it out pretty hard, but not as hard as I possibly can.

I pulled the toilet out (augur still attached). Found a good chunk of cucumber at the toilet outlet and cleared that. Auger is still stuck.

Two theories:
1) The auger head is just stuck in the toilet bend and if I pull hard enough it will come out. How likely is this?

2) The auger head is stuck in a cucumber piece, which is itself stuck. Intel from my wife suggests there is one piece of cucumber unaccounted for.

If option 1 is correct, my best option is to monkey with the auger and pull on it until it comes out.

If option 2 is correct, my best option is drain the toilet completely and wait a bit until the cucumber dries up and shrinks.

Any advice?

 

[Reach4]

I would rotate the closet auger CCW.

I can't imagine a way the problem is getting stuck in a cucumber.

 

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[James Henry]

Sounds like it got tangled. try to push it through the toilet, if you can see the end of it grab it with some pliers, if that doesn't work I would give it a couple good jerks. I cant imagine it tied it self into a knot but anythings possible.

 

[Reach4]

1) The auger head is just stuck in the toilet bend and if I pull hard enough it will come out. How likely is this?

At first I thought you were saying that the tip of the auger was below floor level. Is the tip actually above floor level inside of the toilet? If so, and you have to put in a new toilet, it will probably be a better flusher anyway.

 

[Rich Hanna]

Thanks for the comments.

Its not below floor level. If I push the auger in as far as it will go, I cannot see the tip at the exit.

I'm guessing that means its tangled.

 

[Reach4]

The fact that you had an auger at the ready might indicate that a new toilet may be a good thing. So yank. If the toilet breaks, it breaks.