What do I use to unclog sink?

[Bird]

Not long ago my wife ran a batch of lettuce in the disposal and stopped it up. I cleared that up with a plunger. It's been awhile since I've had any other drain stopped up, but on the advice of a plumber, I put Bio-Clean in all the drains once a month. I can buy it cheaper than Amazon's price, but don't really know if it's worth it. I also pour about a half cup of bleach in the HVAC condensation drain once a month.

 

[kenmac]

I take the drain apart to clean them out. I don't use any of those liquids.

That's what we do.. Drop a camera down and find the clog take the pipe apart & clean the pipe.. I really don't like using the drano cleaners.. Too rough on the septic system ,and you don't know how well it cleared the pipe without a camera

 

[kenmac]

As far as the HVAC drain,, They usually stop up inside the pan..Sometimes,where the connection is made from the PVC to the pan outlet..

 

[Richard]

Now that our power is back on, I thought I'd give the rest of the story.

We had our power go out for four days. Fortunately, I had just filled our three 100 pound tanks of LP as well as my two 30 pound tanks so, we had plenty.

Lost our power.... had my wifes niece here to visit. Good for us but, she's a special needs and wheelchair bound so coming to visit her Auntie and having no electricity for four days.....no running (nor walking ) water meant no cooked dinner....no showers.....no toilets since we're on a well.

Enter brother in law.... wearing his cape with the magic "S" on the front. He had a 10Kw diesel generator "just laying around" Darn thing was on I-beam skids and he had to fork truck it into his truck.

Came to the house, asking if I had any spare wire... well... just so happens, I have 60 or so feet of 8/3 wire (or something huge like that) that I used to run a 50 amp circuit to my garage distribution box!

Little of this....little of that.... yank a couple unused wires from the downstairs circuits....and viola....we were hobbling along with power!

I even had a 5-gallon can of diesel to keep things chugging along.

Brother in laws are great, so if you are a brother in law to someone, pat yourself on the back!

To the sink issue....

Put the trap back together. Never got to use that pro sized roto-rooter machine as I could never get the tip of it beyond the bend after the trap. Probably doing something wrong but, didn't want to force things and break the machine or the pipe, especially since I knew the cold was coming (this was prior to power going out)

Put everything back together, decided to wait a while and just stew on some options.

Several hours later (where did I read this above??!!!!!)

Several hours later, wife came down "I heard a glug....can I use the sink now?"

"No, don't do anything yet, I'm still trying to figure it out"

Long story short... seems that "glug" was significant as we tried the sink later and it's worked perfectly fine ever since.

She knocked out about 3 loads of dishes then wham, power went out for the 4 days.

Got generator hooked up and she finished dishes on outside power.

Learned what breakers we could leave on and what others we needed to dance back/forth

If we wanted water, we could leave water pump circuit on. If we wanted to heat water, we had to either turn pump off or, not flush/use anything that would start the pump.

Want to take a shower? Need pump on but, heater off.

The sink turned out to be a rather miserable kick start to a rather miserable week!

Told the wife, we need to get her niece some form of "camping trophy" since she lasted a week with us under some conditions of duress.

 

[JPRambo]

Sorry I did not get back to you earlier. It is Super Digest-it made by UNIQUE natural products

 

[MossRoad]

Glad its working now. Question? What were your temperatures before, during and after the clog? I ask, because perhaps, as might have been mentioned, ice formed in a low spot in the pipes from cold air coming down a vent from the roof, OR, an ice plug dropped out of the vent into the pipe? I've had that happen to me before at our current house.

 

[ametcalf]

Glad you got the block out. I am writing this to add my 2 cents about drains. Back in the 70's my wife and I had a plumbing company and I was a journeyman and a master plumber. Even though I went into another line of work I have about 40 years of helping people with clogged drains. (If you ever get lonely just let the word out that you used to be a plumber and you will have more 'friends' than you can count.)
Unless it is soda and white vinegar, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don't use chemicals. I have a friend who is a plumber who went to unstop a sink and asked the owner if they had put any chemicals down the drain. They told him no but when he took the trap off so he could use a snake as soon as the air hit the system it blew back in his face. He is totally blind in one eye and partially blind in his other eye. I have never done research on any of the bio type cleaners so I can't speak to those but having had two years of chemistry in high school and a fair amount of it in college I can speak to the non-bio cleaners. Whether they are going to work on a particular clog is a crap shoot at best and here is the problem. You are frustrated and go to the store and buy a chemical and put it down the drain, give it time to do its thing but it doesn't work. You go back to the store and try to buy something stronger, come home and put it down and unless you are pretty good at chemistry there is a good chance you just built a bomb. In chemistry you study about acids and bases and you also learn that if you ever have to mix the two there are very specific ways to mix them or you can be in big trouble. Stores sell both types of drain chemicals right beside each other on the shelf. Some are made of bases and some are made of acids. If you happen to buy one of each and pour down your drain, they mix in the drain and give off hydrogen gas which in the presence of air is VERY EXPLOSIVE. The chemical reaction also causes a lot of heat. I heard of one such case where they blew the end right off a trailer house. I also heard of another case where they poured a lot of the acid type cleaner into a bathtub on the second floor of an old house that had a metal trap. When the acid ate through the metal trap (Acids are very effective at eating metal) it dumped all of the acid out into the ceiling and down onto the first floor. Long story short, when they came home their cast iron bathtub was sitting in the basement.
Now, how do I clean out drains without using these dangerous chemicals. Up until recently I always took the drain apart and cleaned clogs out with the type of snake that connects to an electric drill. I usually used a cordless drill because they spin slower than the corded drills and are easier to control. Both Lowe's and Home Depot sell this type of snake. If the block was too far to reach from under the sink I would try to find a place where I could cut a wye into the line and insert an additional cleanout. If the pipe is metal and exposed I seriously consider changing it to PVC or ABS. With all of the advances in band type clamps and new fittings that can be purchased from any good home improvement store or plumbing supply house this is a whole lot easier than it use to be.
I only recently heard about the baking soda white vinegar trick and I have to say I am impressed. I have used it a couple of times and right now it is the first thing I try if I run up against a blocked sink. (Probably won't work on bath tubs because their blocks are usually caused by hair which has to be physically removed.) You can Google plenty of references to this procedure so I won't take the time here to go into it. Just make sure you have a way to stop the sink drain after you pour the vinegar in and have a good plunger to help things get going once it starts to break loose. The gas that is given off in this chemical reaction is carbon dioxide which is not flammable nor caustic.
One other thing, when we run our garbage disposer we always use plenty of cold water to flush the residue down the drain. Never hot water. We don't put grease down the drain or disposer but with some table scraps you will get some grease. If you use hot water with the idea that the grease will be in suspension when it leaves the disposer you are right, the problem comes further down the line when the water starts to cool off in the pipe and the grease coagulates out and sticks to the pipe. You still have the problem of the grease sticking to the pipe except you have moved it further down the line where it is harder to get at.
Once again Please Please don't use harsh chemicals in your drains. If the guy selling it to you won't let you open the bottle and pour it over his hands you shouldn't be putting yourself in danger by putting it in your pipes.

 

[Jeff Lary]

very good post ametcalf, is that like "a metcalf wheel?" i used to use one in saw filing is why i ask.

 

[Mark 42]

I used to have one of these - it screws to the end of a garden hose.
You shove it as deep as you can - it swells up, then builds up pressure and forces
the clog through by hydraulic pressure.

It worked really well most of the time (nothing works every single time)

Clog Busters at Aubuchon Hardware

Amazon.com: clog buster

 

[ametcalf]

very good post ametcalf, is that like "a metcalf wheel?" i used to use one in saw filing is why i ask.

No I am afraid not. I will have to Google it to see what I am missing.