Pittsburgh Emergency Drain Clog Repair the Easy Way
It’s true. Just about every problem in life has two ways to arrive at a solution. Those are the slow, difficult way or the easy, fast way, with the easy, quick way coming at a higher price.
So, in this case, the fast track to a solution for Pittsburgh emergency drain plug repair is to pick up the phone and dial up a Pittsburgh plumber or try what we did when we called Kwiatowski Plumbing in Pittsburgh to ask for a few hot tips for do-it-yourselfers when we found ourselves in need of solutions.
In our case, it was two drains in our apartment that had become clogged. The bathroom sink drain had, over time, become increasingly slower to drain between uses. We had grown accustomed to it over time and, in a way, come to accept the problem, hoping that one day it would unclog itself, but that never happened.
Instead, it steadily got worse. Then it was when the kitchen drain became an emergency drain clog repair issue that happened a lot quicker when we decided that something had to be done.
An Ounce Of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure
It was getting close to Christmas, and our funds were becoming limited, so it came down to browsing online through the list of Pittsburgh plumbers. We had to pay someone to do the work for us, which would have ended or Christmas shopping, or try to do it ourselves.
That was an easy choice for my wife to make, as was who was going to put on the rubber gloves and do the dirty work. That was me, and thankfully it was the Pittsburgh plumbers at Kwiatowski Plumbing who were generous with their time and info who made it all possible because I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.
So their first tip was to never pour grease down the drain.
It turns out that it’s a common blunder that will inevitably lead to a clog. It builds up over time as it gradually becomes solid, grabbing and holding onto bits of debris that float by until finally, the drain becomes clogged.
Then in the bathroom, hair tends to be the culprit. Once again, just like grease, once it finds its way down the drain, it doesn’t go away. Instead, hair likes to snag onto the drain stopper mechanism that’s about four inches down inside the pipe.
Avoid Liquid or Granular Drain Clog Solutions
Our next bit of advice was to resist the temptation to pour one of the liquid or powder drain clog products available on the market down the drain. They may have been more effective in the past, but in recent years concerns about safety have led to them being reformulated.
So they’re for sure safer now, but that comes with a catch, and that is that they’re so mild that they just don’t work. There are a couple of granular products on the market that actually are slightly effective, but they carry with them the very real risk of chemical burns.
What makes the risk the burns from caustic chemicals like sodium hydroxide, which is a formal name for lye, is that you don’t feel them as they’re happening.
So you could spill some on your hand or splatter some on your face and not even know it, all the while it’s eating a hole right through your skin. They also eat holes in your pipes. So a $5 bottle of this stuff could end up leaving you in need of a $5,000 plumbing repair job further down the road.
First the Bathroom Sink Pittsburgh Emergency Drain Clog Repair
So starting with the bathroom sink, open the cabinet doors underneath it and remove everything that’s in there, so you have plenty of elbow room to work. Then grab a flashlight and stick your head up under there and shine the light up to get a look at the drain pipe.
What you’re going to see is a thin metal shaft protruding from the pipe about 6 inches down that that operates the business end of the drain plug. That little knob on the back of your sink that you pull up or push down to open and close the drain is actually connected to this shaft at the other end.
So go ahead and reach up with your hand to where it connects up to the drain line, and you will see that there’s a small plastic hub that the shaft runs through to operate the drain plug inside of a pipe.
Go ahead and, with your fingers, unscrew this hub by turning it counterclockwise about four or five rotations, and it will come free into your hand. Next, go ahead and pull it out, and this will free up the drain plug in your sink.
The next step is to remove it, and you’ll see that this is where the big wad of hair has built up to cause the clog. Simply clean it up and then repeat the process in reverse to put it all back together again.
Kitchen Sink Drain Repair is More Difficult
If you’re in luck, the drain clog in your kitchen sink is caused by a buildup in your garbage disposal that has become inoperable, and all it might need is for you to reach under it press the reset button on the bottom.
That’s right.
Every garbage disposal on the market has a safety automatic shut-off button that far too many people don’t know about. Overload it, and this built-in breaker with its reset button will shut the garbage disposal unit down. If you press the reset button and that changes nothing, then your problems are bigger.
That’s because your garbage disposal has most likely died, or has something jammed in it. But if your disposal unit has been working all along, then it’s something in the rest of your plumbing configuration that has become clogged. It could very likely be built-up grease or something that was shoved down the drain that was too large to complete the journey.
Now, if you’re brave, you can climb under there and start disconnecting pipes, but unlike the bathroom sink, you’re not going to encounter a small wad of your wife’s hair. Instead, what’s going to come out is some real nasty crud.
There are Good Reasons Pittsburgh Plumbers are in Business
It was when I attempted to clear the clog in the kitchen drain that I realized why the folks at Kwiatowski Plumbing were so generous with their time and advice. They knew from experience that while I might be able to achieve victory in the bathroom, it most likely wouldn’t be the same under the kitchen sink.
The more I got into it, the worst it got as each pipe I disconnected resulted in a deluge of grey sludge with a smell that reminded me of sewer water.
I was able to pinch my nose and eventually get the mess cleaned up, but I was never able to get the pipes back together without them leaking. So I gave Kwiatowski Plumbing a call, and fortunately, their bill was reasonable, so it didn’t bring an end to my wife’s Christmas shopping.