When dealing with a clogged drain, do not overlook the noble Shop-Vac

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Yes gentlefolk, learn from my tale of woe, and redemption.

When I moved into my house there was a note from the previous owner, that the bathroom sink had always run slow. As I lived in the house it was certainly slow. Every 6 months or so it would get unbearably slow. The first time it happened, I looked into the matter, and quickly noticed it had been plumbed with 4 90 degree turns though all dimensions after the trap and based on what I could see where it went, and where it must have gone through many more. A fact I felt confirmed when I tried to auger it at my deepest accessible point, and got it stuck and un-pullbackable for 6 hours, until by some miracle it came free.

So since then, I have mentally weight the cost of having it re-plumbed competently, vs the maintenance of regular enzyme cleaners, and plunging when it got real bad.

Well, early this morning it was very slow. So I started the ritual, except it did no good and pleased no one, and ended with a total clog. I did the last resort I hate and dumped some Drano in it. After six hours it was clear that did no good. So my mind wandered, about how to get the Lye out of the system now. Pushing past the regular solution of neutralizing with vinegar (which I did eventually do) I considered just scooping it all out into a bucket, which led thinking about pumping it out into a bucket, which led to thinking about just vacuuming it out with the Shop-Vac.

Which led to the led to the ultimate question, “Why have I never tried just vacuuming it out before?” It’s a valid technique I have used other places before, and with a full clog somewhere with in 5 pipe-feet of the drain, a damn good idea.

2 minutes of rearranging the shelf to get the damn vac out, 45 seconds of suck,(and ten minutes of cleaning tarish black gunk out of the filters with a hose, post operation) and the drain is no longer slow at all, it’s a damn sprinter. :slight_smile:

Don’t forget about the shop-vac people.

2

Yes! I just hauled out the ol’ Shop•Vac today. Tomorrow, the drains shall succumb to the suck!

And of course, I’ll be singing along to Jonathan Coulton… (do check out the kinetic typography!)

3

Never thought of that. But when my wife’s bathroom sink stops up, I get the plumber’s helper out, and it gets the hair and black gunk up just fine. Beats the hell out of Drano.

4

Might I suggest leting clean water run through the vac for a while immediately afterwards so that the Draino and/or lye doesn’t eat the innards.

5

Good for toilets too. I used my vac to get all the water still in the bowl. Remember to stop before the vac overflows! And carry a heavy vac to dump the water (deep in my backyard woods).

In all water escapades remember to remove the dust filter. In mine it’s a piece of cloth that wraps around the center filter.

6

I bought an old shop vac at an estate sale just for the purpose of draining my hot tub. After draining, there is still about 8 inches of water left in the tub. The first time I used a bucket and 4 rolls of paper towels to get the tub completely empty. That took a couple hours and was hard on my back. Bought a well used 20 gallon shop vac for $5, cleaned it up and adapted a garden hose to the shop vac drain to carry the water away. Takes about 10 minutes to empty now.

7

Shop vacs also work awesome on HVAC condensate drain lines that like to grow “interesting” stuff in them. I have a scheduled recurrent task to vac mine clean every 6 weeks. I even built a port and adapter into the drain lines so I can do this without the need to disassemble anything and with a tight seal.

We all know how good a tight seal is.

8

Are you talkin’ about removing the trap and vacuuming the pipe that is after the trap?

9

No, although I had tried snaking after the trap before the draino. But it had it all back together, and just pulled the stopper, Shoved the hose on the drain, plugged the overflow with my finger, and turned it on. Completely clean 45 seconds later.

10

Yup. Did this when a shampoo bottle top slipped down the tub drain and past the “corner” getting wedged in the pipe just out of view. Nothing short of dismantling the whole thing was going to get that out, except for the ol’ shop-vac. Covered the overflow with a towel, jammed the hose down into the drain, and after a few seconds of horrible screeching, out it came. Tub fixed!

I’ve also successfully used it to de-scum the bathroom sink, too.

And yes, do have an extra filter on hand, you’re probably going to ruin the one that’s in it.

11

My stopper is as such that it doesn’t come out :frowning:

12

Are you sure? Does the stopper look anything like the one at the beginning of this article? If so, there’s bunch of stuff down below the sink (see the pic under “Step 3”) that has to be disassembled to remove it. It’s minor PITA, but not that huge a deal. Just remember which hole the rod goes into when reassembling. Also, you may have to bend that funny clip that holds the rod to the thingie with the holes so it holds it firmly when reassembling. It’s just a little piece of tin that acts like a spring.

13

The instructions on mine say to always remove the filter when vacuuming up water.

Total aside, but in this time of COVID and N50 mask shortages, another excellent use for shop-vac style devices is a drywall sanding attachment, because sanding drywall compound produces large amounts of very fine dust which you do NOT want to get into your lungs, or anywhere else around the house. The Ridgid model that I have has a special fine-particle filter for just that purpose (probably they all do). Actually that filter also works well for general-purpose use so it’s the only type I ever use.

14

That’s my #1 use for mine. My condensate drain gets clogged occasionally. The first time it happened I sucked a dead mouse out of there.

Could you just siphon it out with a garden hose?

15

Excellent homeowner tip. This is the sort of knowledge an aging parent needs to have on tap. Kids complain about being homeowners, this time it’s a stubborn clog, and ya casually ask, “Well, have you tried hooking the shop vac up to it?” Bonus points if you don’t even look up from what you’re doing.

Couple months ago my son was hanging out with us on the back porch and getting frustrated he couldn’t get his car to lock from there with his remote . So The Old Man (me) said, “Listen carefully. Rest the fob on top of your head, face the car and open your mouth, and hit the “lock” button.” The boy actually laughed at me, but I assured him I was serious. He did it, and off in the night we heard “beep beep” and his mocking smirk turned into a look of shocked wonder I hadn’t seen on him in 20 years. I’m not certain it really mattered that his mouth was open and facing the car, but it sure added a layer of mystery to the trick. “Underestimate me at your peril.” Even the missus was flabbergasted.

16

I’ve done both. The vac is much, much faster and better.

17

I had to remove a toilet in preparation for replacing the bathroom floor. Having never removed a toilet before I searched for instructions, “blah, blah, blah, use a sponge and bucket to drain the rest of the water…” Uhh, no, stuck the shopvac in the tank and bowl and got rid of the excess water in a few seconds. I still can’t believe the instructions didn’t say, “if you don’t have a wet/dry shopvac, then use a sponge and bucket…” unless the allegedly professional plumbers are trying to make the job seem more tedious, so they’ll get called out next time.

18

The problem is in remembering to empty the water from the vacuum cleaner and let it dry. I’ve run across a few unspeakably stinky shop vacs because someone sucked up water for whatever reason and didn’t clean it out.

19

What a great idea!

Thanks.

We have backed up plumbing seemingly all to frequently. Needs to bust out the old shop vac (circa 1981)