Snake kitchen sink too often

[Higgs Boson]

Had to call plumber to snake kitchen sink.

Looked back in check book-- had it done in FEBRUARY! Each time, plumber said it was grease and ? sludge?

That is TOO OFTEN! Never used to need it more than every 3-4 years.

I try very hard NOT to put grease down the sink! I scrape grease into the garbage can before I soak fry pan in soap & water. I hardly use disposal at all; scrape food into compost jar.

Asked plumber what I could put down drain periodically to remedy situation. He suggested bleach. I asked how much & how dilute, if at all. Didn't get clear answer.

Group, what has been your experience? What do you recommend?

TIA

HB

[recyclebinned]

Did he have one of these on the tip of his snake?

[Jon Danniken]

A few tablespoons of coffee grounds each day.

Jon

[21blackswan]

every 20 years, or less, you should pull the pipes under the sink apart, and manually clean them out.

The snake thing is only a temporary fix, from my experience

marc

[Nate Nagel]

Do you regularly cook pasta and drain it in the sink?

If not throw a pot of boiling water down it every 6 mos. or so.

nate

[DerbyDad03]

How far does his snake go before he clears the pipes? Could it be roots? Did you have a fairly mild winter?

A guy that worked for one of the biggest plumbing companies in my area told me that mild winters can to more roots in the spring. He said that in the years where they don't deal with a lot of frozen and burst pipes during the winter, they tend to get more calls for roots in the drains during the spring.

Since there is not a lot of water in the ground from the snow, the roots go searching and usually find the drain pipes.

[dadiOH]

Well, AFAIK bleach won't do much for grease. Lye will, turns it into soap. Drano (crystalline type) is lye. Lye + some aluminum shavings to heat things up.

[CRNG]

On Fri, 19 Jul 2013 14:51:22 -0700 (PDT), Higgs Boson wrote in Re Snake kitchen sink too often:

I've only had to clean out congealed fat from my kitchen sink once in

20 years. That was just a few months ago.

I don't do anything special, except for not pouring or washing fat down the drain.

[hrhofmann]

d it done in FEBRUARY! Each time, plumber said it was grease and ? sludge? That is TOO OFTEN! Never used to need it more than every 3-4 years. I try v ery hard NOT to put grease down the sink! I scrape grease into the garbage can before I soak fry pan in soap & water. I hardly use disposal at all; sc rape food into compost jar. Asked plumber what I could put down drain perio dically to remedy situation. He suggested bleach. I asked how much & how di lute, if at all. Didn't get clear answer. Group, what has been your experie nce? What do you recommend? TIA HB

Boiling water, a gallon or two, every month, and also dump some of the gene ric drain unstopper stuff from Walmart, HD or Lowes or Menards down wheneve r you think it might be slowing down.

[bob haller]

I had a line that acted like that. finally had it all replaced after it leaked. how old is the home? the line was totally sluged up.......

it was copper and the interior was rotted.

had all PVC installed and its been years no leaks no backed up lines.

the downstream line might be bad leading to poor drainage and sluge collection.....

my main house drain lne has had root troubles for perhaps 15 years....

so a couple times a year dump a 25 pound bag of rocksalt in the basement washtub, mx hot water with a shovel to make a rich salt mixture, then everyone goes out for day.....

no root troubles anymore.....

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, You know what your problem is, be careful what you try to wash down there. Do you have garburator? Only time I need to snkae the sink drain was when tea ball is accidentally sucked down. I took care of it myself. Rented an auger from HD rental dept. Also don't use hot water when using disposal unit.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Is the drain pipe the proper size and have few bends? Clog in the same place? In my last house, I had the same problem because of the way the drain line was run. It was a lead pipe (built late 1940s) and the bend caused it to narrow down a bit. Final solution was to cut the lead pipe and put in a 2' section of steam hose with clamps. I could easily take it out and clean it.

In this house, it has never clogged. We have a dishwasher so it gets caustic detergent and hot water on a regular basis. I'm also very careful about grease going into the drain. All frying pans or greasy pots get drained into a jar for grease disposal. The little that gets washed is always with detergent and plenty of water.

[Stormin Mormon]

Well, AFAIK bleach won't do much for grease. Lye will, turns it into soap. Drano (crystalline type) is lye. Lye + some aluminum shavings to heat things up.

[Danny D]

To answer the question, I've never had to snake my own kitchen sink; but I've twice had to help a friend who throws all sorts of stuff down the drain.

So, in *my* humble experience, zero to once every couple of years is how long (depending on how much crud you put in the sink).

Having said that, I can't figure out how to snake a kitchen sink

*without* disassembling at least the basket, which means the pipes, which means I don't bother snaking simply because once you've taken the plumbing apart, you can *see* the clogs and push them out with your finger.

So, I ask the OP ... what did the plumber use to snake the kitchen sink? Presumably one side has a garbage disposal (which to my knowledge, can't be snaked); while the other side has a basket, which would take a mighty thin snake (e.g., a coat hanger-thick wire) without disassembly.

[Danny D.]

Why not?

[TimR]

Garbage disposers are not made for continuous duty and rely on cold water to cool the motor. Hot water allows the heat to build up and shortens the life, sometimes dramatically.

[Danny D.]

Hmmmm... ok.

I guess we're talking hot water from the tap, because you couldn't boil enough hot water to make all that much of a difference.

But, you could run hot water from the tap for a while.

I don't know much about garbage disposal units; as I almost never use mine (once a year or so, when something falls into the opening).

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Maybe plumber checks and clean pPtrap and snake the drain thru access port. Every drain pipe has access port tapped in with Y fitting. unscrew the cap snake from there. I just did it once using auger. It fished out little SS tea ball which went down by accident

[Guv Bob]

Ditto to that. I replaced a bathroom sink after about 20 years, and the horizontal drain pipe was caked with about 1/2-inch of packed solids. In my case, cleaning it out was really easy to do. Until then, it was always backing up. Now it's been a year and still flows freely.

[Ashton Crusher]

Do you have a dishwasher that drains to the sink? That's a good way to flush with soapy hot water. I almost never have drains clog. Been in this house over 30 years and nothing's ever clogged. I attribute that to the fact that I run warm and hot water liberally down my drains and don't put grease in them. Like you I scrape it into the garbage. Don't use coffee grounds, don't use drain cleaners, .. I just ignore the "save water" folks and run plenty of hot water turn the pipes to rinse stuff off and out. Been the same in every house I've lived in. Many of them were turned into rentals when I moved on and my tenants can get clogged drains in less than a year in the same house I lived in for 5 years with never a clogged drain.