Last night, around nine o’clock, my husband and I had HAD IT with our left bathroom sink drain. It has been clogging worse and worse every day for weeks.
So, I employed my 100% Natural Drain Cleaner–taught to me by a dear plumber friend:
Step 1: Get a bucket.
Step 3: Eventually, after you’ve struggled with them for a while, gotten jar openers out on them and asked the resident male person to take a twist at it, the whole U will drop into the bucket. Just before you feel it let go (there will be leaking prior, but you’ll know) HOLD YOUR BREATH. Blech. Blech. Blech.
Step 4: Sling anything foreign into the trash can, and anything ‘organic’ into the toilet. Rush to the tub and blast the whole mess with the shower head.
Step 5: Jump around with the gross out chills and try not to swear too loudly.
Step 6: With fear and trembling, return to the devil sink and check to see if there is anything hanging out from either open pipe, like a hair. That’s a hint that there’s more fun ahead of you. Remove the dangling whatever and BE CAREFUL. Last night, with covered hand, I yanked on a hair that was in the way of rescrewing it back together and was ambushed by a slimy eight-inch hair-and-heaven-knows-what turd that jumped out of my wall and took five years off my life. I still haven’t recovered.
Step 7: Screw the whole durn thing back together and congratulate yourself on saving 100$.
I’ve done this in the kitchen and both bathrooms. Usually, it’s not this traumatic, just pencils or beans or the occasional toothbrush, but really, it’s SO much cheaper and more ECO than anything else.
Ivory
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Yes – and why anybody bothers with drain cleaners is beyond me. . . . A good trick I learnt years ago is to put a little sugar, dried yeast and warm milk (mix first) down a blocked sink and leave it over night – in the morning if the blockage was organic the yeast will have broken it down and your sink should clear with some hot water. If you do take the u bend out under the sink sometimes you need to go further down the pipe – a good old plumber friend of mine gave me a special plumbing coiled wire that you can then feed further down the pipe for deeper rooted problems. This is especially effective for blocked toilets and outside drains. Sometimes not being able to find that tool I have had to improvise and have found that an uncoiled metal coat hanger works just as well. If all else fails a household carpet cleaner (like a vax) is really useful – stick the nozzle down the drain and press suck (just for a few seconds at a time as obviously you don’t want to damage the machine with too much water). Obviously carpet cleaner needs a good rinse out afterwards….!
My dad always taught me to use a shop vac for the really fun stuff ^_^
Very helpful tip to solve a clogged drain, thanks for sharing.
Very helpful tip to solve a clogged drain, thanks for sharing.
This is a great idea, same with the milk one! Usually we have hair down the drain a lot. (Sadly, I’m in an apartment, so I can’t mess around the pipes, but for when I own a house, its good to know.) My father actually bought a colonoscopy optic tube for this purpose (it was at an auction, very fun day to wake up and find one of those on your kitchen table). We’ve had major issues with one portion of our plumbing, partially due to shoddy workmanship, clogging, and really bad pipes. My dad did a lot of the work because there doesn’t seem to be any good plumbers in my area.
Great piece. I was especially impressed by your inclusion of: “HOLD YOUR BREATH”
There’s nothing quite like the smell that comes with repairing clogged drains.