Have you ever been dealing with a power outage and had to use your toilet? Did you panic because you thought flushing it would turn the power back on? Well I can say that you must think at that time how to flush toilet during power outage?
Yes, flushing the toilet during power outage can be a life saver – and we’re not kidding about it. Find out how to do that and live through any emergency situation come what may.
Do Toilets Work During A Power Outage?
A power outage is a common occurrence during the winter months, and it can be a major inconvenience. But what about your toilet? Will it stop working during a power outage?
Good news, folks: toilets got your back during power outages! But heads up, if you’re in the dark for over a day, it might be wise to find an alternative potty plan.
Why do toilets continue to flush even when there’s no electricity? Because they are not connected directly to electricity.
Instead, they rely on gravity for flushing and use water pressure from the pipes in your house (or apartment) to push the water out into the drain.
This means that even if there’s no electricity running through these pipes, there will still be enough pressure to flush your toilet.
Conditions At Which You Can Flush Your Toilet During a Power Outage
Every home has a toilet and in most cases, it’s an integral part of the home. Fortunately, flushing toilets during power outages is possible if you follow a few conditions.
Condition 1 : If The Power Outage Is Only For a Few Hours
If you are sure that your power outage will only be for a few hours, then it’s safe to flush your toilet.
However, if the power outage is going to last longer than a few hours, don’t flush your toilet. Instead use a bucket of water to flush and pour it into the bowl.
Condition 2 : You Have Standard Gravity-Flush Toilet
If you have a standard gravity-flush toilet, you can flush it during a power outage. They aren’t directly affected when the power goes out, provided water is still flowing and your waste system doesn’t rely on electricity.
As long as the water disappears down the drain and the tank refills, there’s no reason not to flush.
However, if your flushing mechanism relies on an electric motor or other electronic component (like with some toilets from Kohler).
Then there may be damage that renders your toilet unusable until repairs can be made.
Condition 3 : If You Have a Manual Pump For Flushing Toilet
If you have a manual pump for flushing toilets, the process is fairly simple. First, place the toilet seat cover in place and make sure that there is no water or liquid behind it.
Next, remove any disposable bags from your toilet and make sure that there isn’t anything inside of them.
If there is anything inside of them (like plastic bags), then simply throw those out as well without touching them with your bare hands.
Then, fill up a bucket with water using either a hose attached to your faucet or by using another bucket filled with water from somewhere else in your house (such as from another bathroom).
Then pour this into your toilet bowl until it completely fills up again after emptying out any remaining contents now visible within it.”
Conditions At Which You Can’t Flush Your Toilet During a Power Outage
Condition 1: Whenever You Are On a Septic System
If you have a septic tank, then flush times are limited. A septic system is not connected to the main sewer system and relies on gravity to drain waste into a tank. This means that toilet paper, tampons, and paper towels can easily clog up the pipes.
If this happens during a power outage, your pipes could burst and create an expensive repair for you or worse—cause damage to your home!
Condition 2: When You Have Upflash Toilets
If you have an upflush toilet, you need to have the sewage tank pumped out and inspected regularly.
Upflush toilets use a pump to push water and waste into a septic tank. The pumps are powered by electricity or gasoline, so if there’s no power available during a power outage, they won’t work as intended.
They also require more maintenance than regular toilets because they need to be pumped more often due to the increased volume of wastewater they flush away each time it fills up.
If your home has any kind of backflow prevention device installed on its main drain line—which is designed to prevent contaminated water from entering the local sewer system—an upflash toilet may not be suitable for it either.
Because these devices could get damaged if too much pressure builds up inside them during flushing cycles (which can happen if there isn’t enough suction at the bottom end).
Condition 3: When You live in An Apartment Building
- If you live in an apartment building, your toilet may not flush during a power outage. This is because there may be no water available to your building. Your landlord can tell you if there’s enough water for flushing toilets or not.
- If you live in an apartment building, make sure to have a list of emergency contact numbers handy with information about how long the power outage will last and when it might be restored.
How To Flush Toilet During Power Outage – Easiest Steps
During a power outage, it’s not uncommon to have to use the bathroom.
However, flushing a toilet during a power outage can be difficult if you don’t know what to do. Fortunately, the process is relatively simple.
Step 1: Fill a bucket with water. You’ll probably want to use enough water that the plunger can fully submerge in this bucket.
Step 2: Place the plunger over top of your toilet bowl and push down on it firmly until you feel like all of its contents have been sucked into the bowl below.
Then lift up without removing it from overtop of your toilet bowl. This is where things get tricky—you must repeat this process until all waste has been expelled from the bottom of your bowl and flushed away!
You should do this at least four or five times before attempting anything else with these steps (because who wants to have to clean up after themselves?).
Step 3: Once all waste has been flushed out of your bowl, remove any remaining water from inside by flushing once more with fresh water (this helps prevent clogs).
For more ideas read our blogs:
How To Flush a Toilet From The Inside
How To Flush Toilet Without Handle
How To Flush A Power Flush Toilet
Ways To Flush When You Don’t Have Water Flowing To the Toilet
Although it might seem like a simple task, flushing the toilet is actually a complicated process that requires water flowing to the bowl.
If you’re in a situation where there’s no water flowing to your toilet and you need to flush, there are several ways to accomplish this.
Use The Tank Full Flush
If your toilet has a tank full flush system, this is probably the easiest way to flush without water. With this system, all you have to do is fill up the tank with water and press down on the lever.
Once you do this, it will automatically release enough water into the bowl to get rid of anything that needs flushing out of there.
Use an Enzyme Cleaner
While not as effective as a full flush system, enzyme cleaners can still be used to get rid of waste in a toilet without any water running through it at all.
Simply pour some enzyme cleaner into your bowl after emptying it out first (if needed).
Use a Bucket Of Water
If you don’t have a bucket, fill up a basin or another container with water and pour it into the toilet bowl.
This will help to clear out any solid waste that is stuck in the bowl and make it easy for more waste to pass through when you flush again.
Flush With a Rag Or Paper Towels Instead Of Toilet Paper
You can use any kind of cloth like cotton or even paper towels in place of traditional toilet paper to clean out the bowl before flushing again.
This can help prevent clogs from forming in the pipes if they were already clogged before not having water flow made them worse!
How to Prepare for a Power Outage
When it comes to power outages, there are a few things you can do to prepare your home for the worst. If you’re lucky enough to have a backup generator, you’ll have no trouble with this one. But if not, we’re here to help!
The first thing you’ll want to do is fill up as many buckets as you can find with water so that they’re ready to flush your toilet during an outage.
Fill them 1/3 of the way full and leave them in your bathtub—that’s where they’ll be most useful anyways.
If you don’t have enough buckets on hand, no worries! You can also fill up your bathtub so that all three flushes come from that one source.
Just remember that each bucket or tub should hold around 5 gallons of water, which will get you around 30 flushes before needing to be refilled again.
Also make sure that you have a backup water supply. Your best bet is probably a swimming pool or pond in your backyard.
But if that’s not an option for you then try using rainwater from your gutters or even water from a water feature or rain barrel.
if you have an electric tank-style water heater (which holds anywhere from 20-60 gallons of water).
Drain out some of the hot water into buckets before turning off the electricity.
So that it doesn’t continue heating up after the electricity has been shut off by turning off its breaker switch.
Be sure not to let this water cool down before pouring it into the toilet bowl.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we must say that it is important to know how to flush the toilet during a power outage.
Flushing while the power is out will help prevent backup in the sewer and ensure proper drainage.
Remember to always have a flashlight and a manual flushing method ready in case of an emergency.
FAQs
How many times can you flush the toilet after the power goes out?
Your toilet tank holds enough water for a single flush only.
Is it OK to manually flush a toilet?
Its totally fine to manually flush a toilet. So, when your toilet bowl’s empty and needs a manual flush, just grab a bucket of water and let it make a splash!