What to Do if You Drop Your Phone in the Toilet

It seems to happen to everybody at least once – their smartphone gets wet because the person either dropped their phone in the toilet, ran it through the washing machine, or got it wet at the beach. Since we’re plumbers, we’re going to discuss the very common occurrence of people dropping their phones in toilets. Can they be saved?

It’s a fact – smartphones should not get wet, but you probably know that already. If your phone drops in the toilet accidentally, are there any steps that you can take to save it? Yes, there are things that you can do to possibly save it, but there are some definite do’s and don’ts that you need to be aware of.

Electricity Kills the Phone!

What is it that kills a wet phone? It’s electricity. If you drop your phone in the toilet or in a pool or in a fountain, do not charge it and do not plug it in to see if it still works. If the phone is on, electricity will flow through it and when the electricity touches the water that’s gotten inside the phone, the circuit board will get fried. This is the case even if your phone works after you drop it in the toilet.

Think your phone still works? You’re not lucky. Turn the phone off! A lot of people will drop their phone in the toilet, and when it still works, they figure they lucked out. But when they turn their phone on the next day, the touch screen doesn’t work anymore.

In these cases, it just took time for the water to reach the sensitive connections inside the phone. Once the water came into contact with the connections, the water shorted them out. While the newest phones are made to be water-resistant and can handle being dropped in the toilet for a few seconds, none of them are 100% waterproof.

Does the Rice Trick Work?

You’ve probably heard about sticking a wet phone in a bag of uncooked rice to dry it out, but that doesn’t actually work and it can cause dust and starch to get into the phone, damaging it. The best method for safely drying a phone that has been submerged in water is to take it to a place like DryBox or TekDry, which charges about $69.99 to professionally dry the phone.

We hope you found this information useful. For all of your plumbing and HVAC needs, contact Winters® Home Services today.