I've noticed a lot of incoming students asking questions on this community. That's a good thing, if rather repetitive; good to find out as much as you can about a place before you go. There is one thing that I've experienced here, however, and that is that the vast majority of incoming students (and even freshmen at this very moment) don't know shit (pun completely intended) about how a toilet works. This is generally bad when you wake up at 7:30 in the morning really needing to shit, go into the bathroom, and find that someone else has clogged the toilet and didn't bother to unclog (or didn't know how), as happened this morning. So here is an attempt to educate incoming students about how the toilet works and how to fix common problems that crop up in their use.

I'll be referring to this diagram of toilet internals during this discussion. This is a massive image, you may find that you wish to scale it down if your browser does not automagically do so for you.

In a rather simplified explanation, a toilet really just works with a water pump. Water is pumped into both the bowl and the tank, cybernetically controlled by the float arm (ie when the float arm reaches a certain elevation the water pump is shut off). Pulling the flush handle pulls the flush arm which in turn raises the flapper valve, allowing the water in the tank to drain out into the bowl. This downward water flow causes the bowl to overfill, and the increased water pressure pushes the water over a hump in the pipes, creating suction which drains the contents of the bowl. That's a vastly simplified explanation, but it'll do.

This gives a few common difficulties. I'll list them, and how to fix them:
* Overflowing. This is usually a problem with the water level control; the float arm is broken somehow. Open the lid and lift the float arm up until the water stops. Find some way to keep it there. Call B&G, have them fix this (or do it yourself if you're technically savvy).
* Toilet won't initiate the flush, or the flush handle won't work. This usually means the flush arm is disconnected from the chain or that the chain is disconnected from the flapper valve. Open up the lid and manually open up the flapper valve. Don't worry: unlike the bowl, the water in the toilet's tank is as clean as the tap water!
* Clog. Probably the most annoying out of all the problems, and also simple to fix. Occurs when there's a lot of stuff in the toilet and the water from the tank can't reach the pipe with enough velocity to cause suction, or there's too much crud preventing suction. Grab the toilet plunger (conveniently located in one of your dorm's bathrooms) and place it at the opening at the bottom of the toilet. Make sure it's aligned so that it forms a tight seal around the toilet's opening (usually you won't be able to /see/ this, but you'll know when it happens because it becomes very hard to push). Push the plunger very hard so that you force whatever is underneath it into the pipe and above the hump, thus clearing the blockage. If you're a fairly weak fellow like I am, you're probably going to have to throw all your weight into the plunger and be embarassed that you can't even fix a toilet. Persist; the result is worth it.

I hope that with this discussion we will see more people being responsible for their own problems and incoming freshmen not leaving the burden to fall on their unfortunate peers about three times a week.