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A drain blockage in your sink can be a nasty business. Especially when you have a double sink and both are draining slowly or not at all.
Grease, oil, coffee grounds, bits of food debris, soap residue- whatever is causing the blocked sink drain- can smell and be unpleasant when left unattended. No matter the cause of your blocked sink, it’s a good idea to attend to a clogged bathroom sink or kitchen drain quickly with either chemical drain cleaners or natural alternatives and DIY methods like the baking soda method or pouring boiling water into the drain hole. If ignored for too long, it may lead to serious plumbing problems.
There are universal solutions to the problem, as well as location-specific ones. Most of these are fairly simple and can be performed without additional assistance. All you need is a few easily-obtained implements and a few minutes of your time to remove the pesky debris.
If you have standing water in the bathroom sink or your kitchen sink isn’t draining properly, a plunger is a great place to start. The tried-and-tested way to clear any blocked drain, a sink plunger, may be the first thing you try. It’s a straightforward process, one that should take a mere few minutes to do.
Fill up your kitchen sink with enough hot water to submerge the head of your plunger completely. Hot water can cause the food scraps and debris blocking your drain to expand and loosen, and the plunger will clear it out relatively easily.
Pump your plunger up and down over the drain several times. After a few pumps, remove it and observe if the water goes down the drain or not. If it doesn’t, repeat the process a few times.
In case the sink plunger fails, you may approach the problem differently.
Like hot water in the first method, boiling water loosens the blockage, only better. However, if you have PVC pipes connected to your kitchen sink, you should skip this method entirely. Boiling water may damage PVC pipes and cause more trouble than just a clogged sink.
Heat half a gallon of water until it boils, and pour it straight onto the drain. Now, you must carefully pour boiling water into a continuous stream rather than dumping it all at once. The water should begin to drain. If it drains slowly, you can repeat give it a few tries.
You can also combine the boiling water method with other options as the last step to remove any remaining debris or soap scum.
You can try a different method if this doesn’t work either.
Some sinks have a garbage disposal system. If you have one, it may be the source of the clog, and turning the system on can break up the clog. If your sink doesn’t have one, skip to the next method.
If the disposal system fails to turn on, you can try resetting it. It often comes with a dedicated reset button to reboot it easily.
If that fails as well, your garbage disposal system may be faulty. In that case, you should contact a professional to take care of the fault.
You can unclog your kitchen sink by using baking soda and vinegar. All you need is one cup of baking soda and vinegar, some hot tap water and a sink stopper.
Pour your cup of baking soda into the drain opening, followed by white vinegar. Use the sink stopper to cover the opening and allow the baking soda mixture to perform its job.
Once 15 minutes have passed, remove the stopper and pour hot water down the drain. The drain should clear up slowly. Should your sink still be clogged, you can move on to the following method.
You may hear gurgling sounds coming from your sink, which is often debris or food stuck in the sink trap. You may try cleaning the pipe out by disassembling it. It might get messy, so making a few preparations would be a good idea.
Cover the area under your sink with newspapers. Use a bucket underneath the p trap to catch water. Once you’ve done so, put on a set of rubber gloves and unscrew the sink trap. Clean up the debris or food and rinse it with water afterwards. After you’ve cleaned it, you can put the pipe back on and hopefully, this will clear the clog.
There is a chance that the drain clog isn’t in the sink trap. If so, you can move on to the final method.
Plumbing snakes are drain cleaners made to clear clogged pipes and sinks. This method is straightforward, even if you don’t know how a plumbing snake works.
The first thing to do here is to feed the plumbing snake’s tube into the drain. Keep pushing until you feel its end hit the obstruction, turning the handle. The plumber’s snake will dislodge the debris, after which you can remove it from your sink. You can also use a wire coat hanger for the same effect.
Next, pour water into the drain to see if the drain has cleared up. If it shows promise, you may repeat the process until it is completely clear and your sink drains properly.
You can take a few preventive steps to stop your sink from giving you problems in the future. These are:
Ordinarily, fixing a clogged kitchen sink or clogged drain is easy. It’s a simple matter of dislodging the substance causing issues in your drainage pipe. With the methods listed above, your kitchen sink should function normally.
But if the DIY solutions don’t work, they may be signs of issues with your plumbing. If so, you should contact a plumber and have your sink checked as soon as possible. We do suggest you don’t use chemical drain cleaner for your kitchen or bathroom sinks. Drain cleaner may clear clogged drains, but they can also cause major damage to your pipelines. And, investing in a drain cover is always a good option.
Not sure who to call for professional plumbing services? Reach out to our Gold Coast, expert plumbers! You can rely on us for drain blockages, maintenance, and other emergency plumbing situations.
It’s always best to act quickly so these problems don’t arise in the future. Get in touch with us today!
