Okay, I won’t pour hydrochloric acid down it.
It’s a bathroom sink and it’s been steadily draining more slowly. I’ve tried twisting the plug to pull it out to clean it, but it won’t twist, which suggests to me that the gunk has clogged the plug-twist groove. (I don’t know the technical term.)
So what can I do to unclog it, at least enough to be able to twist the plug and get it out, with all the gunk that’s likely accumlated on it?
Thanks.
I’m not sure what you mean by pulling the plug out to clean it (do you mean the drain itself?) but – I usually use spoonfuls of bicarbonate of soda, dropped onto the drain while pouring hot water freshly boiled from a jug into the drain itself. The reaction usually ejects particles of gunk, bring them to the surface.
By plug, I think Northern means the actual stopper that plugs the hole.
Have you looked under the sink? If you do, I suspect that you might notice a rod that runs from the handle that moves the stopper up and down to another rod protruding from a fitting on the standpipe. This second rod runs through a hole on the stopper assembly and is the reason that you can’t simply pull it out.
If you unscrew the nut that holds it in place and disengage the rod from the stopper, you should be able to remove the stopper and run a small snake through the pipe.
To replace, just reverse the steps, although some finessing may be required to get the rod through the hole in the stopper.
Remove the trap which is the U-shaped pipe under the sink. Put a big bucket underneath it first so you don’t get water all over the place. Pull the nasty gunk out of the trap and the exposed pipes on either side of where the trap was by hand or use a bent piece of wire like from a hanger. It’ll mostly be a nice mix of hair, tooth paste and shaving cream.
Bathroom sinks are usually plugged by soap & hair. At your local hardware store, you’ll likely find a odd “thing-a-ma-jig” which looks like a 3/8" wide 3’ long piece of flexible plastic, with odd little backwards hooks coming out of it. Run that in, pull it out, all covered with hair & soap gunk. Continue until clean. You could try something else flexible & small like a small tube brush. Afterwards run very hot water for a while.
Other safe treatments include a “build-up remover” which works by enzymes (sold alongside drano & the like), boiling water, or boiling vinegar. Boiling vinegar can be slightly dangerous, and even boiling water can be, of course.
As a precaution, I suggest everyone get a can of that enzymatic drain cleaner, and use it and alternatively very hot water on a regular basis.
A whole bottle of Liquid Plumber Professional Strength should do it. Half a bottle, or a weaker strength, doesn’t do it for me.
That is called a plumbers sink snake. They sell them at Home Depot and other hardware stores. They do work and they are cheap. I got one for about 7 dollars. You just feed it down the drain while twisting it and then pull out. It should get rid of it. They are useful to have around anyway.
Sigh. No. Don’t use caustic (or acid) drain cleaners, unless you are a plumber. It often just makes things worse, or is dangerous. It’s a good way of turning a small problem into a $200 plumbing bill.
Shagnasty thanks for the name. Hmm, would “sink snake” make a better R&R band name, or porn movie title? 
Let me just add to the chorus of “NO” about Liquid Plumber. It might work but if it doesn’t you are going to cause a problem orders of magnitude worse than you had in the first place.
I tried the stuff once. It took way too much to unplug things. A couple of tablespoons of lye (sodium hydroxide) and a half a cup of water does a far better job of removing hair/soap clogs.
Sink Snakes On A Plane!
Well, Lye is what Drano is. But still, don’t use lye, don’t use acids, use nothing caustic.
Here’s a Handy Tutorial . Click on the “Video” tab.
Solid Drano’s got aluminum in it too. When you add water to the mixture, the lye eats the aluminum and heats up the solution. That helps digest the hair and soap.
I’ve been using lye in drains for 25 years; never had any trouble with it, never had it wreck my pipes.
Good vid, and made me wonder why no one suggested a good ole plunger. It’s my number one tool to start with when sinks and tubs and terlits plug up. If it gets to the point that I think pipes have to come off, it’s time to call a plumber, but it hasn’t come to that point yet. Not with the handy dandy plumber’s friend. Yet.
I used to be a drain cleaner. I second the plunger idea. You pretty much still need to take the stopper out for that too. Make sure you hold something over the overflow hole(s) so the water doesn’t shoot all over the place when you plunge. Should be easy. Should.
And while we’re on the subject, another common source of slow-running bathroom sink drains is the overflow hole, or more accurately, the sink vent. It gets clogged up at the connection to the drain and if the sink doesn’t vent, it drains quite slowly, even if the main drain and p-trap are clear. There was a thread on this subject within the last month. So after you remove the pop-up drain and run a sink snake through, if it’s still slow, check the vent.
Last week, I responded to a slow running drain complaint. The J-bend was clear. The tailpiece was gunked to roughly 30% of the original inside diameter. After dislodging the plaque in the drain tailpiece, the basin drained freely.
Snaking it out is probably the best option, from what the others have said. If you don’t want to get into that, though, there is one other option for drain cleansers:
Your local ‘natural foods’ store or similar may have enzyme cleanser. I’ve tried the stuff; seems to do some good. I believe it works through both enzymes and natural bacterial digestive action (the bacteria produce more enzyme -?) - but I’m not sure about that. What I really believe, though, is that I feel better about pouring that soup (comes as a powder that you mix with water) down the drain than I do about messing with bodily-harmful alkali.
I don’t think the enzyme cleanser will work on completely clogged drains.