A good toilet paper is hard to find these days, thanks to everyone's totally irrational coronavirus panic buying. But that's not the biggest problem for our butts.

No, worse is that alt-TPs are messing with our septic systems, which makes an even bigger mess for everyone.

My colleague Doug Mahoney has a great new blog post over at Wirecutter that explains why you shouldn't flush anything but toilet paper down your porcelain throne, and also recommends some handy alternatives (and disposal methods) in case you do have a problem finding those cherished rolls of soft white butt scoopers.

 Toilet paper is very fragile and is designed to self-destruct in water with very little agitation. Tissues, on the other hand, are made to stand firm against a 100 mph sneeze discharging from your nose. Although the two products might have the same general look and feel, this video shows the difference in their durability. It takes less than 30 seconds of agitation for the toilet paper to be almost completely broken down. The tissue, however, remains fully intact. In plumbing, the bits of toilet paper can speed down the waste lines, but tissues remain big enough to catch on something, contributing to a clog.

Out of Toilet Paper? You Have Other Options. Just Don’t Flush Them! [Doug Mahoney / Wirecutter]

Image: Public Domain via PxHere Read the rest

Last week, red wine flowed from the household faucets in the northern Italy town of Castelvetro di Modena. A broken valve at a local winery caused 1,000 liters of wine to flow through the water supply to around 20 homes. Unfortunately the malfunction was resolved in a few hours. From CNN:

The incident provided a moment of levity to the town that's in the midst of the coronavirus crisis -- which has hit northern Italy the hardest.

"At a time where we have very little to smile about, I'm glad we brought some levity to others," (deputy mayor Giorgia) Mezzacqui told CNN. "Hopefully some day they'll remember us and will want to come visit us..."

Fabrizio Amorotti, commercial manager at Cantina Settecani, said the malfunction "was appreciated by many. Some clients in the areas called us to warn us about it, and to share they were bottling the wine!"

The Lestina family of Bagley, Iowa were greeted with a wonderful Halloween surprise on the morning of October 3, when they awoke to find 5 inches of animal blood, fat, and bones flooding through the basement.

Two weeks later, it's still blooding.

The Lestinas have lived next door to a meat locker for the last decade. But the building was transferred to new ownership this past April 2019, and, well, something clearly went wrong., because the drainage from the kill room backed up and clogged the shared pipelines, which spilled over into the Lestinas' house.

(It took two weeks for the meat locker to reach and offer to help pay for the mess, too, although they were cooperating with local health and sanitation services before that.)

From the Des Moines Register:

Two weeks later, the blood is still seeping into the basement and the Iowa Department of Public Health told the family it's not safe to live in the home.

They are staying with relatives in Panora until the mess can be cleaned up.

"I've had a company come out for cleaning and sanitizing, but they can't start that process until it stops coming up the drain," Lestina said. "I've been talking to different excavation people. It hasn't been a promising deal. I need dry weather."

According to KTIV, the family was hoping to put their house on the market soon, too. But that plan might hit some snags. Read the rest

Behold the Drain Addict clear blocked stormwater drain #165. Of all the drains thusly unclogged, though, it is #73 that earned the greatest audience:

How does the device he uses work, exactly? It eats its way down the drain, blasting water and matter backwards with compressed air? Read the rest

My daughter has long hair. This cheap drain snake has cleared a number of plugged bathroom sinks, and our tub. The snake drags out a lot of hair. Perhaps because it is so "supple."

When it is the kitchen sink, and dishwasher, that aren't clearing however, you may need to call a plumber. :(

Vastar 3 Pack 19.6 Inch Drain Snake Hair Drain Clog Remover Cleaning Tool via Amazon Read the rest

Those "flushable" baby wipes marketed to adults are causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to North American sewers and water treatment plants. Halifax Water put together a helpful and entertaining PSA on why the things are a bane to civil engineers across the continent. Read the rest

The guys at This Old House are back to explain the many reasons why your home plumbing might not be draining water properly. You can play a drinking game by waiting for them to say "big slug of water" and "sewer gas."

[via] Read the rest

The folks at This Old House use clear plastic plumbing to explain how bathroom sinks work, and how to unclog them.

We live in an old house and the pipes get clogged a lot. My favorite bathroom sink unclogger is the Drain Weasel.

See also: What do you do when you've got a plumbing clog? Read the rest

While ripping apart a bathroom to renovate it, apprentice plumber Dean Materi noticed something in the rubble underneath the old tub. “I seen a gold shimmery thing on the ground and I thought it was a copper light fixture,” Materi told the Calgary Herald. “But when I went to shovel it up, it seemed kind of heavy. I picked it up and it was a gold brick.”

It was a 1-kilogram gold bar, worth US$40,703. When Materi's boss, Alif Babul, showed the brick to the homeowner, the owner "confirmed a gold bar was unaccounted for in the abode."

Babul believes the gold brick was stashed near the bathroom’s jacuzzi tub and over time was moved by the vibration of the motor.

I hate it when my jacuzzi motor moves my gold bricks.

[via]

Image: Shutterstock Read the rest

We live in an older house and the plumbing clogs up frequently (usually an hour before a dinner party). I rarely get good results from Draino or other lye-based clog dissolvers. I end up with a sink full of caustic swill that splashes on me when I vigorously agitate it with a plunger. A Drain Weasel works well for bathroom sinks, provided the clog is near the drain opening. The clog problem I had this morning, though, required more powerful clog-busting technology. Read the rest