How to Unclog a drain

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Channel Locks
Sewer Snake
teflon tape
liquid drain cleaner
bucket to catch water
a few towels just in case.

Step 1

Empty sink of any dishes or other items and put them well out of the way.
Step 2

Clear the drain catch of any food or any other contaminants.
Step 3

Start by trying a simple plunger to clear the blockage.
Step 4

If the Plunger does not do the job use an off the shelf drain cleaner and let sit for about 5-10 minutes and plunge if necessary
Step 5

if the previous steps did not resolve your problem, get a small bucket and put beneath the P-Trap on a towel. Undo the p-trap and drain water into the bucket (you may need a pair of channel locks if you can not get the p-trap lose).
Step 6

Now that you have the p-trap off use a plumbers sewer snake or even an electrical snake will work.

a)Run the snake to the sink and clear that section.
b)Run the snake through the p-trap to clean it out.
c)Run the snake through to drain side of the line as far as you can
Step 7

Replace the p-trap (you may need teflon tape if it is prone to leak)

test the drain for leaks with a small amout of water if it leaks make sure everything is tight and use teflon tape on the threads if you think you need to.
Step 8

Now that the leaks are gone fill the sink up and see if it drains.

if the sink does not drain at this point it could be a more serious problem further down the drain pipe and a plumber may need to be called.
Step 9

empty bucket of excess water and clean up.
Step 10

Now do those dishes.

Comments

gabbygirl007 said

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on 9/18/2009 Great tips on how to unclog a drain! Rated 5!

on 9/9/2009 A lot of times women's bathroom sink will slow because a lot of their hair goes down the drain. Something you'll see on tv lately is a simple drain snake called turbo snake http://www.turbosnake.biz which makes it easy to pull out all the goopy hair in the drain below the sink.