How To Unclog A Sink

Now, trying to figure out how to unclog a sink is such a part of our daily lives so it is absolutely essential that we know exactly how to do so. There are many different ways that one can use to unclog a sink, be it in the kitchen, bathroom, or anywhere where a sink might exist and face problems of being stuck in the pipes. The most common areas are in the kitchen and bathroom since those are the places where we do most of our daily business in, from washing dishes and food of dirt and grime, to cleaning ourselves of the same yucky substances after a hard day's work or play. Considering that all these will accumulate and probably not flow through down the sink piping 100% of the time, you can be sure to end up with some manner of clogging of the pipes at one point or another.

I have had to find out how to unclog a kitchen sink the first time many many years ago at home when I was just a teenager. Back then, your average home might not have pipes that were as solid or heavy duty as the ones that are more common in our expensive homes now (yes everything is expensive now even with the bubble bursting). The designs were also not the best but American diets were already clogging our arteries with fat and cholesterol, which is then similar to what happens when all the dirt and grime gets washed off the plates and flow down the kitchen sinks. Sometimes you have bits and pieces of food that will go down as well if you did not happen to throw them aside first in the bin, and you should certainly make sure that happens instead of being lazy and just trying to wash them down the sink. Do the latter and pretty soon you will have all those bits and pieces of half eaten and rotting food, plastic, paper, whatever you can think of, accumulating in the pipes and leading to the sink getting stuck. It is very easy to spot. The moment you start seeing water not flowing as smoothly and quickly down the sink and through the pipes, it is a sure sign that waste and grime have both started to develop in the pipe linings. If you have two adjoining sinks that share pipes, then lo and behold the water might even flow back up on the other sink. Gross if you ask me.

Back then when I first encountered the problem, my parents insisted that I fix it. They wanted me to be independent and learn how to do household chores. I didn't complain because I knew it was useful for me. Finding out how to unclog a kitchen sink was something I thought easy as hell but then when the moment came to do it, I was a bit lost. There was no Internet then so I could not just look for ways to unclog a kitchen sink, which you can find online, with the tools or services that provide such solutions. They may be plumbers or just tools that one can easily buy online or from the neighborhood handyman shops. Needless to say I thought it was as simpe as using a long enough stick to try to clear the pipes, pushing it through the holes in the kitchen sink hoping to hit the jackpot and seeing the water all drain down quickly. It was a great big failure and boy, was I embarrassed when my parents were giggling themselves to death in the corner of the dining room.

Next, I tried to use a plunger - those things that looks like a suction cup is stuck to the end of a pole. I thought that since you could use these to clear a stuck toilet bowl, you could do the same with the sink. I tried for a while trying to clear it but nothing actually happened except having lots of foul draft coming out of the sink each time the plunger tried to suck out or push through the waste. It made me nauseous and was very tiring. I was getting frustrated and very embarrassed that nothing was happening with my efforts to unclog the sink. Until my dad couldn't stop laughing, came along and told me to add some water before doing what I was doing. Being skeptical, I still went ahead and did what he told me and sure enough, the pipes were cleared, the sink was unclogged and we could all go back to using the kitchen merrily - till the next time they got stuck.

If you have trouble unclogging the kitchen sink with a plunger, there are chemical solutions that are sold now - online or from a nearby store, that can help to solve your problem. These chemicals are said to react with the rotting food or waste material that are stuck in the sink, dissolving them or breaking them down, and will work within a few hours. I have never tried them as I observe proper cleaning up habits to prevent stuff dropping into the sink. But friends have told me that these chemicals that will unclog a sink do work fine but you just need to be careful to wear gloves when using them.

There is not much difference doing this as with the former. There might be less oily grime that might accumulate unless your body excretes a lot of that stuff. Most of the time it would be substances like your body hair, bits of food expunged from your mouth after brushing your teeth, pimples, blackheads and whiteheads, and all the other dirty little secrets that only you would know yourself that happens in your bathroom. They might be small each point in time when you dispose of them by flushing down the toilet sink, but they all band together and create a big ball of unimaginable yuck. I use the plunger again and it works. I do find that the bathroom sink tends to get clogged up faster than the kitchen's. Maybe it also depends on how often one uses it. I suppose the chemical solutions that can clear stuck sinks will also work well with the ones in the bathroom, since architecturally they are all designed the same way.

There must be other methods that are unique to individuals, family secrets and all that that provide similar solutions on how to unclog a sink of any sort, be it in the bathroom or kitch. If you know of any, feel free to share in the comments.