Tomorrow is day 3. bookmarking thread
Exciting, I know!
Better than the paint drying thread, anyway.
Given all that I agree it’s unlikely to be the vent.
If the bathroom was/is used by kids there’s always the possibility something “creative” went down the drain way back when and got stuck. Fast forward to now and whatever it is is now encrusted with gunk. The enzymatic or other drain cleaner will eventually remove a lot of the gunk, but won’t do much against a plastic army man, a matchbox car, a bottle cap, or the like. No harm in trying though.
The next step when that fails is a rooter run down from the rooftop vent. It’ll get past the square corner that’s stymied your efforts from the problem sink.
One more question: Is the problem bathroom a double sink or a single sink?. If double, how does the other sink perform? And just to make sure: I think you said the tub/shower & toilet in that bathroom drains OK. True?
I used it several times years ago and it did nothing for me but I blame the drain pipes and not the cleaner. My drains were 50 year old galvanized pipes draining very slowly and clogging often. After my failed attempts using drain cleaners, I replaced them with PVC and the plumber pointed out the slow drain cause. A cross section of an old 2" drain line revealed a build up within the pipe that reduced the 2" drain to about the size of a pencil and the build up was rock hard. The plumber explained this is a common issue with old galvanized pipes caused by interior corrosion and mine had reached the final stage.
If you have an older home with galvanized drains you can try the enzyme type cleaner but it may be time to re-plumb the system if that fails.
Yeah, if the sink in question is one floor above the kitchen and is the only one that drains slowly it does point away from the vent - though, depending on whether there is ‘creative plumbing’ in your home - it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
I just had to have 45’ of cast iron drain pipe replaced in my house because the washing machine would not drain properly. After many attempts to snake and chemically clear the drain, including removing the drywall to visually inspect the pipe, I called a plumber. It stumped him for several hours, too, until he put his camera down the pipe along with a garden hose and watched as I modulated the water flow via the hose. The inside of the pipe was so corroded that large flakes of rust would peel off and get stuck against the rough walls of the pipe, quickly creating a dam.
tl/dr - Old cast iron pipes could be the culprit as well.
Yes, that’s correct. The tub/shower and toilet in that bathroom are exhibiting no problems.
Day two of the enzyme cleaner seems to have yielded no progress, so I’m starting to fear there’s either some sort of blockage like LSLGuy suggested (the house is new to me, so who knows what the previous owner or their kids may have done. The other bathroom drain was slow, but I managed to snake an old toothbrush out of it!) or something with the pipes just slowly losing capacity. I guess in my imagination, the problem with pipe capacity was generally ‘biofilm’, which the enzyme cleaner would take care of, but if it can be rust or something else, this could turn into a bigger project than I’d hoped…
When and where was the place built? Have their been additions? If so, when? What material are the drain (& supply) pipes you can see made of?
You said you have a basement and that’s often the best place to learn about the construction materials and techniques of a house even if the trouble spot isn’t inside the basement. Additions or renovations are often wildcards where they can be done using damn near any era of tech and anything from high quality according to all local codes and practices down to zero quality done by a total goof using chewing gum, bailing wire, and parts from a broken down house trailer.
Are you sure he wasnt drumming up future business? All the plumbers I know say to avoid all that crap like the plague.
The enzyme stuff works good on* slow* drains. Not stopped drains.
1931 in Seattle. Pretty sure it’s never been added on to.
The supply lines are copper, and they appear to be more recent than the house’s vintage. I’m not at all sure what the drainage lines are. The parts I can see are regular, white PVC which connects to some sort of black plastic before disappearing into the wall. From the basement (I have some of the ceilings open currently), I do see some metal drainage pipes. I’m not sure what though - stainless steel, maybe?
That was my first thought, too. However, when I thought about it, it seems I’ve never actually heard it from a plumber. I have a hunch the Drano is bad meme may come from the “Chemicals are bad, m’kay” crowd.
Nope. I was the apartment manager for a decade+ and all three of the *commercial *plumbers told me to ask the tenants never to use Drano (or especially acid based) drain cleaners.
These dudes were the real pros, they installed who buildings worth of stuff, worked on complexes, etc. Large many-employee many-vehicle companies.
One even suggested I buy the enzyme stuff and run it thru all the drains on a bi-monthly basis to stop the tenants from using dangerous crap.
My guess is plumbers don’t like it because it’s caustic, and as such is bad for the skin, eyes and clothing, and they’re the ones getting it all over their hands and tools and clothing when some yahoo homeowner fills their drain up with a quart of Drano and then calls them when it doesn’t work for whatever reason.
I doubt they’d care in the least if it ate your pipes, strictly speaking; that spells more business for their kind.
Can you just unscrew the trap? I knew you put one of those zip strip things down there, but sometimes you can save yourself a whole lot of trouble by taking the drain apart. Pull out the trap (if it unscrews) and check that for gunk. If it’s a bathroom sink, also pull out the drain AND the drain lifter thing behind the tail piece and check all that.
I know people don’t want to get their hands dirty, but it could just be a bunch of gunk (or a foreign object) in the trap that’s slowing everything down.
Before you work too much harder, you might want to see about just taking that off and checking it out.
Ahem. From the OP:
[QUOTE=me]
I’ve tried snaking it with one of those flexible, plastic sticks with the barbs on it… And that’s starting from where the piping goes into the wall, past the trap (which is also clean.)
[/QUOTE]
Have you visually inspected the trap? You really don’t know it’s clean until you’ve pulled it apart and looked at it. Those plastic things with the barbs are great for pulling out wads of hair, but less great at pulling out grease/gunk and actually not that hot and pulling out little bits of hair that haven’t turned into giant hairballs yet.
I’m just saying, that if you haven’t pulled the trap off yet AND it’s easy to do so, it’s probably worth it, just to either find out it IS the problem and fix it or rule it out (without making an assumption).
TLDR You said “the trap (which is also clean.)” and I want to know if you’re basing that on the plastic thing coming back empty or if you’ve taken it apart.
How would I have started snaking at the wall without taking the trap off? Yes, I’ve removed it. I’ve visually inspected it. It’s clear. The problem is past that point.
Through the actual drain, like a lot/most people do it.
A simple, ‘yeah, I took the trap off’ was really all you needed to say.
That would be starting at the sink, not starting at the wall. Sorry if that was confusing to you.
One thing I have used lots that works really well on older homes with slow pipes is a Drain King. It is a simple system that washes the pipes out with a vibrating pulse of water. It requires a garden hose and available hose bib, other than that is is simple, safe and mess free.
These things work great, you may need to use it at various clean-outs to fully chase the clogs down the sewer. Several times I have used it on houses with slow drains and it cured the problem for the remaining time I lived there.
Its cheap - about twenty bucks.