What to Do if Your Toilet is Overflowing

If your toilet is overflowing, the number one thing you need to remember is: DON’T PANIC! If you know what to do, and act quickly, you can both temporarily halt the crisis while you wait for a plumber to arrive and mitigate a lot of water damage. All you need are the proper steps. Read on to find out what they are.

The majority of toilets sold over the past few decades have an external water valve that controls all of the water that flows into the system. This valve is most likely located either on the base of the bowl itself, or on the wall nearby. Once you find the valve, turn it to the right to close it. This should prevent any more water from running through the toilet, and then onto your floor. However, you should be aware that not all toilets have this valve.

If you don’t have a convenient shutoff valve to prevent the deluge of water from your toilet, you’re going to have to rig something up that’ll work just as well. The best way to do this is to lift off the lid on your toilet tank. Inside, you’ll find a number of different mechanical oddments, one of which is the ball-cock. This is a rubber ball, faintly resembling the squeezing end of a turkey baster, which monitors the level of water in the tank. When the water level gets high enough, the ball-cock lifts a lever that closes the water access pipe into the tank. This prevents the tank from overflowing. Lift the ball-cock and find a way to secure it to accomplish the same thing, effectively halting the flow of water into your toilet until your plumber can fix the root problem.