On Sunday night, the sink in the kitchen finally stopped draining. It’s been draining slowly for weeks, on and off for months. Caustic soda and boiling water has kept it more or less usable. But on Sunday it finally gave up. So under the sink I went, and dismantled the fittings there – a bit complicated, as there’s a dishwasher as well. But I took it all to bits: but the under-sink piping was all in working order: the problem was further down.
Now that’s happened before: I put some concentrated drain cleaner (nasty stuff) down the pipe at the very bottom, and that resulted in cracking and popping sounds, along with a very nasty smell. But I didn’t have any so I tried pushing down with a piece of cable. It went about 1 metre, and stopped. No dice. Time to call in the experts.
Monday morning, called the plumber. I was really pleased when he turned up an hour or two later. He tried the acid technique: no dice. He tried his pipe rods. Nothing. So it was time to go under the floor. Fortunately, there’s a hatch in the kitchen, so after removing all the furniture and the flooring under he went. It was nasty down there: the pipe was leaking, including all the acid that the plumber had tried. The drain pipe itself has come partly loose, and the result was that water was flowing (or rather not flowing) downhill and then up before it reached the main drainage.
After more attempts at unblocking the pipe, the plumber eventually decided on replacing it: a nasty job, because the under-floor area was wet with a mixture of acid and waste. But that worked, and the new pipe now slopes all the way downwards. The old pipe was blocked for a long way. All this took the plumber till mid-afternoon, and even he described it as a bit of a nightmare!
But at last we had a usable kitchen again.
Happiness is a kitchen sink that drains!
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