I could never be a plumber
 

Yech!

The bathroom in our "new" house has two sinks and the drains were running slow in both of them. I don't like dealing with gunky drains when it's MY gunk but .....

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1764356101.jpg

This came out of the right side sink. The PO's wife was blonde, so now I know which sink she used - not that I give a *****.

It is pretty foul. My wife has really thick horse hair and gets a drain wookie every 6 months or so. I created a wire tool that will remove the wookie most days without having to disassemble the whole thing. The last one was the size of a mouse!

A larger tie wrap chucked in a drill will clear out sink traps.

^^^ That stopper is nasty. I'd toss it in favor of a new one. But if the seals still work and you can stand the thing, I guess soak it in dishwasher detergent for a while and hose it off.

Out in the yard.

Could I ask you to take a picture of it once it's cleaned up?
I don't understand how it works.
Seems like it's a self clogging drain with all the hardware hanging off what ever it is you're holding in your hand.
Thanks for the idea on the drain clearing with a tie wrap Zeke, I'll have to give that a try as I now have some really big tie wraps courtesy of a friend.

Great idea.

Awoke this am to no heat. Crawled in crawlspace to furnace and there was an honest flood. A stupid copper PEX T in a line above the ductwork had corroded and failed, spraying water into the flexduct, which eventually filled the plenum and tripped the pressure switch. So had both a furnace and plumbing fix today. Did the plumbing myself, furnace guy checked out furnace ok and we drilled a hole in plenum to drain. Fun fun fun.

That looks like a nice brass stopper which will last forever.

A plumber once told me his boss had three things he wanted him to learn:
Payday was Friday
Sh...stuff flows down hill.
Don't lick your fingers.
:D

For hair in the drain, I fashioned a hook from a heavy duty paperclip. With two women in the house, it gets a work out from time to time.

That's nothing! There's a reason plumbers get hepatitis vaccine shots!!!

That's a common finger tap drain pop up. Clean if you like, if not buy a new one. Nothing to them but they often get stuck due to gunk. We have the same thing at our house and my wife has shoulder length hair but they come off like if we have a golden retriever. She seems to take care of it once every blue moon with her 99 cent hair removal tool https://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-20-in-Hair-Snake-90830/324601746?source=shoppingads&locale=en-US. It get tossed it after removal.

When I have nothing better to do, I take that damn thing outside and spray it off with the hose and dunk it in vinegar for 30 min, brush it off with a tooth brush (use your wife's and make sure you put it back:)), hose it off. Use plumber grease or silicon grease in the moving parts. it keeps it functioning properly and little gunk will stick to it making the next cleaning super easy.

I have some nitrile gloves for that kind of maintenance….

Story about my long time plumber. I used his company's plumbing service years ago when I was starting out. He was itchy to make some extra money on the weekend moonlighting. OK, fine and seems to be a upstanding guy. After few years, he was completely on his own running his plumbing business.

One time, I asked his helper about the condition of a toilet drain. It looked pretty bad with all debris from demo. Young guy, had a disgusted look on his face and I agree, it was a bit disgusting because of the was wax ring and gunk. I screamed for Rick to come and have a look so we can decide if it needed to be changed out for our client. He said to his guy, why didn't you look and see. He then proceeded to show him how it done. He takes his hand, no glove, sticks it down into the toilet drain, pass the flange and started to tap on it and feel for rust in the elbow. After that, he removed the sub-floor and took a look at the condition from down below. Turn to me and said, its all good and it will last for many more years to come. Then look at his guy and said,"next time you will need to do this for him". I couldn't hold back my laughter. Thank goodness I don't have to do this or be near them. Ever since, I never shook his hand again and usually jsut left a check on the hood of his truck. Told my guys to never, ever borrow his tools and if they do, wash up well with acid for three hours.

We have a below grade toilet, and a septic system.
When the rugrats were smaller there was a few occasions when wipes were flushed.

The problem with below grade toilets is that as a low point they preferentially fill if there’s a blockage to the main line, and then they try to pump stuff back u to same.. When it’s blocked this pressurizes the system.

Pulling the inspection cover in the U to snake - and after the first $500 bill to do this, I bought a powered snake - is really really unpleasant.

One of my rental is on a hill side with a sump. One of my guys and I installed the pump and did all the concrete work. I only work on my own stuff and only if it brand new. I knew going in that I must purchase a reliable, domestic pump and not some cheap import. I would hate to have to be the guy to replace that pump in that standing sewage water. Its nasty.

If you think that's bad, ever see those guys that work commercial buildings? Blockage is in the basement normally hanging above in a parking lot. Once unclogged all that siht gushes out under a lot pressureand they have to clean it.

That or in foreign developing or 3rd world countries like Indoa. They send some poor skinny dude in the city sewer through a manhole with no shirt, no glove or any protection and the worst part, no real tool to clean a block age. Let me see if I can find that video

<iframe width="1292" height="727" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Vp5s4hqX4ZQ" title="How Sewer Diving Became One Of The Most Dangerous Jobs In India and Pakistan | Risky Business" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Sad and this isn't really about sewer worker. Just nasty

They have little girls born into a lower cast cleaning a public outhouse in some remote village, no gloves but by hand a a few towel. I wakeup daily knowing how good we have it here.

These gloves at Ace are worth their weight in gold. They are even powder coating stripper resistant, the stripper I use, one dot on nitrile destroys the glove in seconds and then will burn your skin, killing a layer that slowly sloughs off for new baby tender skin underneath. Get a pair. I'd pay $25 if I had to without a thought.

Soft Scrub Neoprene Cleaning Gloves

They sell plastic sticks with barbs on them for cleaning the drain.
They are about 2 foot long and cheap. I've seen them at Menards.

If I was forming a religion, I might use that as a threat:

"Follow my teachings or you'll come back in the afterlife as a declogger in the sewers of Bangladesh - for eternity!"

They get to give a little back, though.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1764369171.jpg

It seems when I get into a mess, I rip it all out and install a new something. ( rather than fixing it )
I think we all hate plumbing!

I now have a plumber on speed-dial ... "charge it"!

I thought about just buying a $500 beast to unclog my parents' instead ... nah...

I'll continue to call Ronnie ... nights, weekends, holidaze ... and he lives clo$er :D

Worth it :)

I have learned from my recent efforts ... just call "the man"... the hard way.

I recently bought the barbed gizmo to clean our sink drains. Not much hair, but there was this black **** mixed in with it. I wanted to barf.

^^^ It's working.:D

It was in good shape except for the hair and gunk in it. I cleaned it with hot water and compressed air, slathered it in Sil-Glide, and it works like new. The trap was clean. Apparently all the hair, snot, toothpaste spit and (shudder) got caught in the stopper mechanism.
Not sure what you mean by “tie wrap.” Zip tie? We use 1/8 wire rope chucked in a drill to clear VW preheat tubes. Something like that?

I don’t understand how it works either. There is some kind of cam mechanism inside, a spring, some wire… It does seem like an advanced sort of self clogging, plumber job security design. At least it’s easy to access if the stopper isn’t stuck down (this one was). If the stopper isn’t stuck you just pull the whole mechanism up and out.

See that o-ring (black) like thing up near the top? It goes into a tube (drain) once the pop up is depressed keeping it water tight. Push it again, it pops up above the tube allowing water to drain. Some of that o-ring like flap are clear instead of black. They last for some time.

That thing is no different then the traditional pop up with a lever that goes through a hole in a faucet. That round ball with a shaft through the pop-up traps hair just as fast if not faster

I guess dealing with public restrooms all my life I have become very used to how nasty plumbing can be. My main rule is don't get it in your mouth, you can wash it off of everything else.

I remember I was about 10 and the main sewer line had stopped up at the restaurant. I spent a few hours in the manhole at the edge of the street pushing a sewer snake. That night as I was in the tub dad comes in and dumps a 1/2 gallon of Clorox in the water with me.

We replaced a lot of the old sink drains with different sizes of these depending:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1764427187.jpg

Much less complicated and easy to clean. $9.00.

That must function on the same principle as the ones I have. The wire at the bottom is identical. I didn’t take time to try to understand how it operates. Mine are plastic and that looks like metal. If these things give me anymore trouble Im going to look for the metal ones.

@wdfifteen, 1/8th wire rope would be better. Tie wrap, zip tie, same thing. Kleenex, tissue. Ty Rap is a trademark so that's where I got it. Cable ties is another but that excludes duct ties.

But they do knot up due to their flat shape. I suspect wire rope would do the same at some point but I like the idea. A 3 foot length with a swage at one end to chuck up w/o fraying would sell well as an item.

So you have to reach down through the standing water to pop it back up to get it to drain?

Just like the kitchen sink plugs, yes.

Never been an issue.

Scott, yes!

OK!
Thanks guys, appreciate it.

Our tub drain has a plug that screws into the drain and is pulled up/down to seal it. I've removed it as it only traps 'stuff' better and we just use a rubber stopper when the grandkids need to take a bath when here.

Those sink/basin unblocking products work really well. they contain a whole lot of caustic soda also known as lye, and they dissolve gunk fast.

Me being a bit Scottish I hate to give my money to someone else for a job I can do myself. So I've completely re-plumbed about six houses. It's quite easy.

There's a toe tap model for a tub as well.

I hate plumbing, and every "simple 5 minute project" becomes an multi trip to the store ordeal.

There are just three easy rules to being a plumber.

S**t flows downhill.
Never ever lick you fingers
Payday is Friday.

I have a slow drain on my bathroom lavatory drain. No doubt it is just collects toothpaste, beard hair trimmings and soap buildup. "All I have to do" is take apart the P trap, and clean it out. I will wait until it gets even slower to get full benefit of the project.

Freshly renovated, all new plumbing in the bathrooms ... easy access .... long runs though... TP clogs :(....

...on down the line(s) .... several times now :(.

I would seriously purchase the two different beasts the plumber used recently .... different calls after my attempts ... and I had rentals :(.

Hell naw ... Ronnie just lives a few miles away, and he's a good dude ... said day/night/holidaze ... doesn't matter .... works for me.

What do y'all do for clogs like that?

KFC, I bought one of those cheap Chinese made drain unblockers that look like a wound up spring and has a small auger on the end. And you power it up with a powerful electric drill. It works very well and you don't have to wait for a plumber/drain man to schedule you for a few days time.