blocked waste drain

piglit · Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 3:12 pm Post Subject: blocked waste drain

The kitchen waste water drain is blocked... again!! The drain takes sink, dishwasher and clothes washer water through three pipes into one drain. We have had some trouble in the past, on and off, when the sink would not drain and it turned out to be the outside drain was blocked with inherited muck from previous owners... and a few snails in the drain hole itself. The sink has been slow to drain all week and now has packed it in totally. On the advice of our local hardware shop I have poured a smallish bag of soda crystals down into the mess and nothing happened. I have poured one kettle of boiling water down now and still nothing. Help! It is starting to smell and I don't want to have to drain it by hand again ( though with rubber gloves this time) What do I do?? So far kicking the sink has not helped, nor has yelling at the blockage. Thanks for who ever can come to my rescue.

relief123 · Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 4:38 pm Post Subject:

have you checked the outside drain? is this blocked again

piglit · Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 5:30 pm Post Subject:

Yes, the sink in drained because I hand drained the outside drain beofre I started so I don't have water inside right now. It is outside that is the problem. The house was built in 1870 and the current kitchen was once the old boiler room so the pipes are new that lead to the drainage point but whether that was constructed at the same time as the new kitchen, about 7 yrs ago, I am not certain. The gully (?) has a clay plate with nine holes in it which are all clear and what lies beneath it can not be seen as the area is too small to bail out unless I use a little cup as it gets quite small and narrow. I can't see if the outlet down the pipe to the main drain is blocked, though my prodding has unleashed a few lumps... of what I have no idea. The whole thing is now still full of the grunge water and soda crystals that I have waited on bailing out again until I had some advice. I read through some of the past drain advice and am glad that I had no dead frogs in mine though I am quite certain that the last snail is history after the soda as it is now a bit of a floater! Thanks for starting to help me... so many people had a look and thought me unworthy of a reply that I was about to retitle my thread ' I'm not wearing knickers' or something just to get some help!!! It just seems such a silly thing to have to call someone out to fix.

Bahco · Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 6:15 pm Post Subject:

Call out a small local drain company who wont charge you much (£40 by me ) to put down a mechanical snake which should loosen the gunge in your pipes and unblock it .

You could also try pouring a bucket of water into the drain from as high a point as you can as the pressure may unblock it for you.

__________________
85 weeks without smoking!

Nige F · Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 7:56 pm Post Subject:

Are you really not

.I`ll be over from Sussex in a flash

ChrisR · Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 10:26 pm Post Subject:

BOILING water IS good stuff - but you need a couple of gallons ideally. Not a substitute for a good rodding. Your blockage is likely to be washing-machine soap solid. Nothing much attacks it.

JohnD · Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 10:49 pm Post Subject:

ChrisR wrote:

There's no substitute for a good rodding.

Bakerboy · Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 9:54 am Post Subject:

Hi I had this problem with a blocked drain, it turned out to be a build up of soap powder residue from the washing machine (as mentioned in another reply)I put on a pair of long rubber gloves

and ended up cutting the residue that had built up in the U bend with a knife. A lot cheaper than a rodding company.