If you are like so many people in the UK, you are asking yourself “How to unblock a kitchen sink?” You visit your local home improvement store like B&Q or Wickes, and you see the latest in sink unblocking innovation, you look at the prices of many of these items, and they are all costly. What do you do? You keep shopping. It would help if you had a solution fast.
But now you are faced with the problem that your favourite kitchen sink is only a few months old, and it is already showing signs of a blockage. There are several reasons why your kitchen sink keeps getting blocked. If it’s a frequent issue, it’s usually a sign of a drain problem.
Call in the drainage experts for a swift solution. There’s are a few things you can try first, though. Here’s the general process in a nutshell, but read on for more details:
- Pour boiling water down the sink
- Check if your toilet, bath, the shower also aren’t draining. This will indicate a local or drain problem
- Use a standard household plunger to try to dislodge the blockage
- Try to break down the blockage with vinegar and baking soda (this generally won’t work for many blockages and is usually a preventative solution. Leave the mixture to work for half-hour if decide to try this)
- Use a plumber’s snake / drain snake. If you don’t have one or don’t feel confident in using one, then this might be the point at which you call in the drainage experts
- Give the P-trap an excellent clean.
Your kitchen sink is one of the worst places for any food to gather. When you bake or fry anything, your kitchen sink is exposed to a lot of heat.
It is also full of various other ingredients that you use every day. If that combination of heat, bacteria, moisture, and so on is not kept clean, it will eventually result in a blockage. The key here is to know what to do to clear out this obstruction and to keep your kitchen sink from getting blocked again.
One of the ways that you can clear a blockage is to use a plunger. Will baking soda work? Sometimes but not always when it comes to unblocking. Rarely. Baking soda and vinegar can be an excellent preventative method, though. You have to mix some baking soda with water in a bowl, pop it down the drain with some vinegar. Bear in mind there will be a chemical reaction, so be careful. You’ll have yourself a cheap and effective way to reduce the chance of a further blockage in your kitchen sink.
Baking soda has many uses beyond just helping to prevent kitchen sink blockages. For example, it can be used as a scrubbing agent for stubborn dirt and grime, and it is also an excellent deodoriser.
You may have heard of lots of ways to unblock a kitchen sink, including using coffee grounds, putting a cup of baking soda down the drain, a wire coat hanger, even only running the hot tap for a while. But in many cases calling the professional drain unblockers is the best option. A blocked sink can be very inconvenient and if you take you more than say 15 minutes to try to unblock it, then getting the drain care experts it might be best.
Sink drain issues can be frustrating, and if the water isn’t flowing freely, you may even have a more significant drain issue.
Try to unblock a sink yourself, and it may be futile. Blocked drains are often a job for professional drain cleaners. The same goes for bathroom sinks too.
When you realise you have a blocked drain, sit for a few minutes and consider the best option. Running more water down the drain may make the issue worse.
Of course, there are many commercial cleaners that you can buy at your local DIY store, but some may damage your drains, so be cautious about what you put down your drains.
The key to kitchen sink unblocking is that preventative action is usually the best option. It’s usually a lot cheaper long term. Please don’t leave it too long before you call in the expert drain unblockers.
If you don’t manage to unblock your kitchen sink with a plunger, then it’s time to call in the drainage experts, who’ll use drain rods to unblock the sink.
If the drain care experts can’t fix the sink issue at the source, it may be a problem with the sewer drains themselves. Don’t worry, drain care professionals can also fix drainage issues, by tackling the drain from the manhole (inspection chamber).
An excellent way to check for this is if other fixtures are also becoming blocked regularly. For example, check your toilet, is water rising too high up the bowl again? This is usually a sign of blocked drains or possibly even a damaged drain.
Hopefully, this will help you figure out why your kitchen sink is always getting blocked.
Remember that a block in your sink is a severe plumbing problem and one that should be addressed right away.
Once the blockage is removed, your life will be much more comfortable, and you will not dread washing the pots anymore done because of the constant blockages in your sink.
