Use it the next time you remove the toilet
Let’s clear the air as to what “forcing the trap” is not:
• It’s not a technique used by interrogators to make informants “sing.”
• It’s not a strategy golfers use to play their “fried egg” ball that’s buried in a bunker.
• It’s not a t’ai chi chuan movement to remedy constipation.
It is, in the end, a simple technique used when you repair or replace a toilet.
The trap, of course, connects the drainpipe system to branch line. You may curse the trap, which is built into the toilet structure, when waste plugs it up and you have to use the plunger. But mostly you should sing praises to it because the trap holds water that blocks sewer gas. Your home life would stink, literally, if not for the trap.
Forcing the trap involves pouring water into the toilet in order to remove nearly all the water from the toilet. Huh? These instructions in three steps will explain:
1. Shut off the water at the shut-off valve beneath the toilet or at the main valve.
2. Flush.
3. Pour 2-3 gallons of water into the bowl quickly. This creates a water surge that shoots past the trap and down the drain. The water pressure in the now-full pipe on the other side of the trap creates a siphon that sucks the bowl dry, or nearly so. This means when you remove the toilet, you won’t have much, if any, clean up.