How To Clean A Drain

So I thought everyone should know how to clean out the Bathroom Sink Drain.  It is such a pain when they start draining slowly, or as mine was recently doing, draining really really slowly.  Modern plumbing makes this really easy to fix.  I can't do this at my house in Mexico, because it has really old copper pipes (I am afraid of braking pipes), but at my home in Denver we have PVC pipes. PVC pipes are easy to screw and unscrew at joints to take apart (you can even do it with chrome pipes, though you may need a wrench).  Oh, by the way everyone,  this is really disgusting, but it is much cheaper then calling the plumber, and you can do it with any sink drain in your house.  So it will save you lots of money, because you wont have to call a plumber, and you also wont have to buy Liquid Plumber or something like that.

So on to our tutorial about how to Clean A Sink Drain. 

The parts of your drain:

slip joint nuts

 p trap (the u part)

1.  The first thing that you need to do is put a large bowl under your pipes to catch the water and gunk from your drain.  Then, you will need to unscrew the slip joint nuts from the u part of the p trap.  I normally start at the longer end.

2. I next unscrew the short end.

3.  I then start removing the pipe, make sure that you do not lose the washer.  I next unscrew the  stopper from the back of the long pipe coming from the sink.  That also traps a lot of hair and gunk.

4.  Okay, this is the really disgusting part.  That is the hair and gunk that was stopping up the drain.  I need to stop doing the facials in my bathroom that I post about!!!  They really make a mess of my drain.

 

5.  Even though I removed the gunk that was hanging down, there is still more that is attached to the stopper in the drain.  That is why we unscrewed the stopper joint at the back of the pipe.

6.  Next, you will pull the stopper out of the drain and clean it off.  At this time I also wash out the u part of the pipe.  I figure if I am going to the trouble of getting the hair and gunk out of the pipe, I will take the time to wash the pipe out also.  It normally comes clean rinsing it out with warm water.  You may need to get a paper towel to really get it clean, there is normally quite a bit of buildup in the pipe.  I do this in my kitchen sink, so that I can run the garbage disposal.  I don't need to stop up any other sinks.  I also clean the outside of the pipe.

7.  You will then need to put the stopper back in the drain.  There is a whole at the bottom of the stopper that is offset.  So the part with the whole is at one side.  You will make sure that the side with the whole is closest to the back of the drain.  Next, you will screw the stopper joint back into the pipe, making sure that you get the long part through the whole in the stopper itself.  This is what will help open and close your stopper.

8.  I next reattach the u part of the pipe.  I also make sure that the washers are in place along with the slip joint nuts, and start screwing them back to the pipes.

9.  I make sure that all of my slip joint nuts are screwed on tight.

10.  You are done.  You have just learned How To Clean Your Sink Drain.

Thank you so much for joining me today.  I hope that this tutorial is helpful.  Let me know what you think.  I always love hearing from you.

Enjoy!!!
Debi

Find us at these great parties