I spent yesterday wrestling with a plumber’s snake to get the drain in my bathroom sink working. While I did clear the blockage, I am certain that the drain line still has a lot of nasty gunk all round the inside of the drain pipe. I could feel it at the start of the drain line. Yuck. I made a hole of at most the diameter of the 1/2" snake in the line. Sooner or later the drain line is going to be fully blocked again. Oh, wise people of the 'Dope, what can I do to keep the drain line clear? These are plastic pipes, house built in the mid 1990s in northern Virginia. I did get the down pipe and the elbow of the sink cleaned out (By hand. Again, yuck!). This blockage that I cleared in the drain line was a few feet past the elbow.
And the second sink in the same bathroom must have the same problem waiting to happen.
Any suggestions? Or do I just have to live with this until the next time the line’s blocked. The sink drain works great - best it has in a couple of years - but that’s only for now.
Once the drain line is running reliably (at least for the next few weeks/months), it becomes possible to safely use chemical cleaners in it. You can try that. PVC is fairly immune to being destroyed by caustics used in reasonable quantities. You may find that feeding a pint or two down your most-used drains every month keeps problems at bay indefinitely. Follow the package directions for maintaining a running drain, not for clearing a clogged one.
The other approach is to hire a plumber to snake the drain with a full-sized expanding-bit power auger. When they’re done the lines will be fully clear from end to end. They may choose to go at it from the roof vent rather than trying to negotiate the sharp bend just inside the wall right behind your bathroom sink(s).
If you are going to call out a pro, it makes sense to have them snake everything everywhere on this one visit. Much of your cost is their initial call-out charge. Snaking e.g. 3 stacks will be a lot less $ than 3x snaking one stack.
If you are going to call a pro, get the work done *before *messing with any chemicals.
I feel your pain … I’ve had some luck with just repeated snaking … three or four times through the entire length of the smaller diameter piping … making sure I get all the way to the bigger main drain pipe … it’s tricky, and requires a feel for the snake, but if you can spin the snake head into the clog, sometimes you can run that wad back and forth through the pipe and get everything cleared out that way …
For safety’s sake … make absolutely sure your mouth is closed when the snake comes out of the drain pipe … that’s experience talking here …
Try taking a small chunk of rag and sticking it really well onto the corkscrew end to widen the snake head. It really has to be attached very well. You don’t want it sliding off and remaining in the line. I use large gauge aluminum wire. (Which itself helps a little bit.)
I see posts similar to this quite a lot on this forum. What I find curious is that, with what looks like a similar plumbing set up to mine and everyone I know, you have clogs and we don’t.
The only precaution I take is to pour a couple of litres of boiling water down the kitchen waste every now and then.
Try a drain king. They work great for this. They use a vibrating pulse of water that loosens and blows out the gunk, no nasty mess. There are products that look the same but do not use a pulsing stream which is key. Used them on lots of old, slow plumbing systems successfully. You may need to use it from several clean-outs to clear the system right out to the main sewer.
Boiling water. Fill kettle with water. Bring to boil. Dump down sink. Repeat several times. The heat from the water helps to melt the soap that is a big component of the gunk.
Turn on the tap very slightly and let it run for an hour. The steady small stream has an erosion effect. I used it to clear similar side blockages of gunk in my sink a while ago.
My cousin tried one of these. After a few minutes whatever was causing the plug moved down line and his sink drain appear to drain fine. A few hours later his wife asked about some white stuff on the roof of the house. He climbed up and looked. It was toilet paper and some other nasty stuff.
His water weenie shoved the plug to a stack line and instead of pushing it towards the sewer line, everything was pushed up through the vent. He called a plumber to clean out the drain after that.
Anytime I boil water (to make spaghetti, for example) I pour the water down a drain. I’ll also occasionally fill a stock pot with water, bring it to a boil, then pour a bit down each drain in the house.
If you have access to the roof AND there is a convention vent line on the drain (the vertical drain pipe runs up through the roof), I would (moderately strongly) suggest you clean the line from the roof down.
I’ll post this again:
In 1982 I bought a house built in 1918. Real wood - real everything!
Including the original kitchen sink.
The previous owner-resident aged out in it and became weak and poor (huge mistake in the US).
Maintenance was not all that it could have been.
After her death, the place was rented to college students. Maintenance did not improve, and no expense was too small to not pay.
That poor sink would barely drain.
I ended up tearing that area apart, removing the drain line completely.
The 1 1/2" pipe had massive grease build-up ABOVE the sink. Every time a sink full of greasy (everything was fried in grease) water backed up, the water level in the vent line would rise to the water level in the sink.
By 1982, all there was left of that 1 1/2" drain was a 1/2" hole in the grease deposits.
You could replace the entire line from the sink to the sewer pipe and that sink would still be slow - until the vent is clear, the condition of the drain does not matter.
I am against ever using chemicals in drains. It can come back to bite you in several ways.
If you use caustic chemicals they can only clean the bottom of the drain line. Where the chemicals come in contact with the gunk.
The only “chemical” I would advise is an enzymes. The little bugs will eat the gunk off the pipes.
Another way is to run water down the drain as you pull the snake back. The stuff that is knocked loose will wash down the line. But as you pull back use large volumes of water.
Apartment Maintenance trick, Run a small 3/8 diameter, cheap, snake after clearing out the plug. Put a bend in the first 2 or three inches of the snake to increase the rotational diameter, keep running hot water while running the snake.
Don’t use an ordinary drain cleaner- use one that is meant to clear build-up on the pipes. The one I used was called “foaming pipe snake” although they may have changed the name by now. When you pour it into the drain, it fills the pipe with foam and you leave it for a few hours. It’s meant to be used on slow drains or as maintenance, not on completely stopped drains.