Cleaning sink wastes

Harry Bloomfield · 30 Jun 2019

There was a question a couple or so weeks ago, about sink drains producing smells, which produced a few solutions. My sink is a type with a bowl plus a smaller bowl alongside it, both showing a common trap, then out through the wall in 42mm OD push fit, all of which I installed some 30 years ago. The smell comes and goes.

Yesterday evening, I made up a wooden bung, to block a short section of 42mm, hot melt glued into the 42mm - which I then used pushed into the elbow outside, to prevent the sink draining.

I then filled the sink with bleach and water and left it overnight to soak, until this morning, before draining it and rinsing. Looking down the plug holes before I began, it was obviously filthy down there, but when I had finished it was absolutely spotless and no sign of even the slightest smell.

It beats stripping it all down and the result was likely much cleaner.

dilalio · 1 Jul 2019

Did you also clean the overflow grid and hose as these are the most common culprits for smells on a kitchen sink?

Mottie · 1 Jul 2019

I’ve tried bleaching ours from time to time, even blasting down the main sink drain with our portable dog washer until it’s spotless but still, with no rhyme or reason, an occasional pong kicks up. On our one, the half bowl overflows into the main bowl and I’ve just checked (we've only had it 18 years!) but I’ve just noticed there is no overflow in the main sink!

dilalio · 1 Jul 2019

Motman said:
I’ve tried bleaching ours from time to time, even blasting down the main sink drain with our portable dog washer until it’s spotless but still, with no rhyme or reason, an occasional pong kicks up. On our one, the half bowl overflows into the main bowl and I’ve just checked (we've only had it 18 years!) but I’ve just noticed there is no overflow in the main sink!

Sometimes overflow is on the drainer... If you have one. But I guess you'd see it

Mottie · 1 Jul 2019

Definitely not. Either sink can overflow into the other so as long as the plug is out on the bowl not being used you’ll be okay!

Harry Bloomfield · 1 Jul 2019

dilalio said:
Did you also clean the overflow grid and hose as these are the most common culprits for smells on a kitchen sink?

Neither bowl has an overflow, but the two bowls are linked by a slightly low lip - I guess the idea is that both plugs with never be in at the same time, so one will overflow to the other.

Harry Bloomfield · 1 Jul 2019

Motman said:
I’ve tried bleaching ours from time to time, even blasting down the main sink drain with our portable dog washer until it’s spotless but still, with no rhyme or reason, an occasional pong kicks up. On our one, the half bowl overflows into the main bowl and I’ve just checked (we've only had it 18 years!) but I’ve just noticed there is no overflow in the main sink!

I have used bleach numerous times, squirted around trying cure the smell, but it always came back fairly quickly. No matter how hard I tried, looking down the plug holes, it was never that clean - until yesterday. Now I can look down them and they are clean as new.

Mottie · 21 Sep 2019

Motman said:
I’ve tried bleaching ours from time to time, even blasting down the main sink drain with our portable dog washer until it’s spotless but still, with no rhyme or reason, an occasional pong kicks up. On our one, the half bowl overflows into the main bowl and I’ve just checked (we've only had it 18 years!) but I’ve just noticed there is no overflow in the main sink!

Update: This morning I replaced the taps on my kitchen sink. I removed the waste assembley so that I could get at the tap pipes easier. Fitted the taps, no dramas. However, when I refitted the waste and tested it, I had a slight weep from the sealing washer on the waste of the main sink. Probably just needed tightening but as the wife has been complaining about that sink never holding water for at least the last 15 years I thought, feck it, I’ll pop down the shop and buy a complete new basket strainer waste. I removed the old one to take with me and...............

between the chrome basket and the sink was ......

A thick black stinky wodge of jelly

of the most effing foul smelling shyte you could ever imagine. Definitely has to have been the stench we’ve been getting for years.

Worth checking if you have the....

stomach! I had less of a smell when I had to strip our Saniflo to pieces!

Hugh Jaleak · 21 Sep 2019

I can deal with sewage and sludge all day long, but give a me a grease trap and I'm retching. Sinks and kitchen wastes are the most revolting things known, only urinal wastes come close.

oilboffin · 21 Sep 2019

I'm with you give me a ton of ****e every day before grease.Bob

Keithmac · 22 Sep 2019

Motman said:
Update: This morning I replaced the taps on my kitchen sink. I removed the waste assembley so that I could get at the tap pipes easier. Fitted the taps, no dramas. However, when I refitted the waste and tested it, I had a slight weep from the sealing washer on the waste of the main sink. Probably just needed tightening but as the wife has been complaining about that sink never holding water for at least the last 15 years I thought, feck it, I’ll pop down the shop and buy a complete new basket strainer waste. I removed the old one to take with me and...............

between the chrome basket and the sink was ......

A thick black stinky wodge of jelly

of the most effing foul smelling shyte you could ever imagine. Definitely has to have been the stench we’ve been getting for years.

Worth checking if you have the....

stomach! I had less of a smell when I had to strip our Saniflo to pieces!

What have you done to stop the new one doing the same? Ornis it a case of taking it off for cleaning now and again?.

I ******* my wife all the time for the stuff she puts down the sink, her argument is the baskets on the wastes are designed to collect all the crap and nothing can get through (hey ho..).

Our sink + 1/2 sink don't have an overflow either which I've just realised, a bit odd really!.

Mottie · 22 Sep 2019

Keithmac said:
What have you done to stop the new one doing the same?
.

Well, I didn’t fit the sink and waste all those years ago. A (so-called) professional did when the kitchen was installed. What I noticed with the new one was that it had a thin foam seal to go between the sink and the chrome basket inside the sink and a rubber seal between the waste body and the underneath of the sink. The original one had no seal between the chrome basket and the sink so water/waste had collected in the gap underneath the waste body and in the gap and turned to stinky gunge over the years. Hopefully it shouldn’t happen again with the inner seal being fitted.

Harry Bloomfield · 22 Sep 2019

Keithmac said:
Our sink + 1/2 sink don't have an overflow either which I've just realised, a bit odd really!.

They don't need one, they work on the principle that you might use a plug in one side, but not both sides at the same time. There should be a lowered section separating one sink from the other. If you have two plugs, best ensure one is put out of reach somewhere as a spare to avoid overflows.

Hugh Jaleak · 22 Sep 2019

Motman said:
A (so-called) professional did when the kitchen was installed.

Professional, Plumbing and Kitchen Fitter are not often terms that go together...

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Cleaning sink wastes

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