The kitchen sink is clogged, probably by food. No garbage disposal. Dual sink. It's been slow-draining for a while now, and recently it got worse, and now it's just terrible.
I tried vinegar and baking soda, since that foams up nice in the pipes, followed by hot water and all. Not much help. I checked the trap, it had some food in there but not enough for a clog. Cleaned it out. Tried more vinegar and baking soda. Then I went and got a snake. The water flows fine until it hits the clean-out port. That's where it all pools up. I got the snake down pretty far and found nothing, but now I can't get it more than two feet.
The landlord is being lame and not answering, but either way, if possible I'd like to take care of this myself before I have to go find the dude and make him fix it. Is there something I can do that doesn't involve drain-cleaning chemicals, or can someone talk about how to snake something properly? I'm immensely frustrated by this.
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I'm just plunging and snaking like nobody's business until the landlord wants to stop by, I guess.
Both Drain-O and Liquid Plumper now have bottles with plastic snakes included - not something you can open a plumbing business with, but may get the job done.
There's also some crystal products than may work. They're nasty business, though.
That's the stuff you want to get. It's basically super concentrated NaOH. Or the crystal shit, same deal but dried.
Please note that this stuff is highly caustic, and should be handled with protective gear and care.
Also, open your windows and get some airflow going. All you need is a little bit of aluminium foil in the drain, and whoops you've got hydrogen gas...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adtWOOm5Dhc
Don't use your regular vacuum to suck out the clog. Shop vacs have an offset suction system (this is almost certainly not the right term for it) with a removable filter. Your standard-and-garden household vacuum sucks stuff basically straight across (or through) the motor. You don't want wet stuff in there. You usually also can't run your vacuum without the filter in it, which is necessary when sucking up liquids. They'll get into the filter mesh and, once it's waterlogged, you'll lose all suction. So don't do that.
But you can get a little wet/dry vac for like $20 from Lowes. It won't have a lot of oomph and will probably just have a drain hose instead of an integrated bucket, but it might suffice to suck out your drain.
Warframe: TheBaconDwarf
While I'm sure it's something not generally advised, you can take your hand-crank plumber's snake, cut off one end of it and attach the cable to a power drill, giving yourself a pretty decent home roto-rooter. It's a surprisingly effective way to clear clogs.
That particular one is crazy expensive. On ebay or a lot of other places, you can get them for $10-$30.
I had a bad clog in a main line once, long ago. I hired the plumber to come out, and the machine he used was essentially that. I decided there was no need to ever pay $300 for this service again since that's basically the cost of the tools, even if you don't already have them.
Okay, not properly - if I fill the sink up, it still takes around ten minutes to fully drain. But that's better than four to six hours.
I can live with it now, but I really want to see about getting in there and fucking with the rest of the clog. I guess I'm looking at chemicals. I know not do pour them in there with the vinegar and baking soda rattling around, or else there's a hazardous problem, so I'll give it a week's time of usage, flushing, hot water down the pipes, and then add the heavy duty stuff when the drain has dried again.
The clog isn't in the trap, that was the first place I checked. The trap was actually surprisingly clean. I cleaned it more just because. I'm also not in an apartment, so no issues there.
So I'm going to observe it for a few days, then go back over this thread and go shopping for chemicals. In the mean time, please pile on the advice, because I don't know what I'm doing!
I know it's been solved, but that's a helpful hint for other people too.
I have my water heater turned down to a lower temperature to save energy and am careful with cooking greases. My girlfriend on the other hand has almost scalding water on tap and dumps grease down the drain all the time. I have clogged drains sometimes and she never does so maybe a simple adjustment to your water heater's limiter would fix things going forward.
Whenever I snake, I'm pulling out long round white, black-spotted somethings. They get snagged right inside of the bore, and the sink runs fine until it no longer wants to. I guess I'm going to need to do a plunger and snake marathon one day and see what happens.
Why is my sink infested with aliens, and, last chance, is there something else I can do before I resort to chemicals or a plumber?
Could just be the PVC or tape or something.
Everytime we've called roto-rooter it's been a few hundred bucks and the landlord handled it. It sounds like you might have a grease/food buildup from years of tenants dumping dumb things down the drain.
On a related note... don't flush tampons down the toilet. Anyone. It's cruise control for a blocked mainline.
It's not impossible, necessarily, but it could just be a case of having the wrong tool for the job. Of course, the right tool costs a few hundred bucks, so keep trying to get the landlord involved.
http://www.homedepot.com/Plumbing-Drain-Openers-Chemical-Drain-Openers/h_d1/N-5yc1vZbqlj/R-100169339/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&storeId=10051&superSkuId=202894338
Is what I use on my shower drain, and while you sure as shit don't want to drink it, it works amazingly well.
Reason: cellinikobakery
Human beings, viewed as behaving systems, are quite simple.
janebakery