The bath is my house is draining increasingly slowly - the main sewerage pipes are fine so the problem must be in the U-bend (?) pipe, etc leading from the plug-hole to the sewerage pipe.
Unfortunately I can't get access to said u-bend pipe, etc so the only alternative seems to be to use one of those drain-cleaning fluids and hope they'll dissolve whatever hair, gunk, etc is stuck in there.
snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com (max-man) wrote in news:42791fcd.561749578 @news.freeserve.net:
There are also physical methods. Before replacing our bath, we had a similar problem. I kept it at bay by using one of those coiled spring drain 'things'. Amazingly, it would go right through the trap and a couple of metres along the pipe. Not perfect but worth a go and a lot cheaper than gallons (sorry, litres) of chemicals.
Or a sink plunger. I found (with my kitchen sink) a washing up liquid bottle was the right diameter in the 1/2 bowl plughole to clear a slow running blockage with vigourous agitation.
We've had great success with a cheap plastic drain clearing pump. Sort of concertina-y thing about 30cm long, 4cm diameter. Fill with water, bung up the overflow, run some water into the bath, remove plug, quickly apply pump and PUMP.... Forget where we got ours from but can't be hard to find.
Now you've done it. People will get ratty about C****** S***, acid, and all sorts of things. However, try rodding it out with a bicycle brake cable outer (make sure the end hasn't got any sharp edges).
Most of the liquids aren't ideal for this. They're good at blockages, where they can sit against it, but they tend to wash past quickly and have relatively little effect.
So recently I've been trying some American enzyme based stuff from Wilkinsons. My kitchen sink drain is also too shallow an angle (and it would require tidying the garage to get access to it).
As to acid v.s caustic soda, then alkalis are much better on fatty deposits, acids on limescale. Apart from that, such as hairballs, then there's not much to choose between them.
Apparently it was a whole bar of soap, dropped into the toilet pan, and flushed. It is now somewhere beyond the U-bend, not that far away probably because the toilet is said to drain slowly after a flush.
Friend used on of these in his kitchen and popped the pipes apart pumping water out behind his units :-) took a while to fix as well as the backs of the units ended up having to be cut out.
If you haven't played with caustic soda and hot water before, the net nannies will come along and tell you to use a wetsuit, fully enclosed breathing apparatus, and a fume cupboard, but eyes apart, it will hurt if it gets on your skin, but no more than any other burn. Wash splashes off with cold water, and use clothes that you are chucking anyway. Anything that is effective at dissolving human hair works just as well on wool, and cotton.
It will actually boild the water in the U-bend generating nice localised agitation and pressure which helps dislodege the muck.
Once dislodged wash the pipes through with LOTS of cold water to dilute the alkali on its way downstream. Otherwise it can attak pipes and seals a bit.
Bleach is similar but much milder and not so exciting. Or effective.
You don't need the hot water. Caustic will boil quite nicely when added to cold water. However, the crystals often form a solid mass if you don't stir them. The initial heat seems to bond them together and, while they dissolve over time, they may add to the blockage initially.
It doesn't hurt when you first get it on your skin but it will seriously soften it up over a period of time, like half an hour, as anyone who's got it inside their gloves will testify. If you want to see what's under the base of your fingernails, this is the method to use.
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