How To Unclog A Kitchen Drain

With holidays comes the time to receive and honor your friends and relatives. There will be someone or the other to entertain every other day. But then, there is no better time to reunite and celebrate and as an integral part of the revelry, you will be busy feeding their appetites as well. Marching in and out of the kitchen every now and then will become a routine at least for some days. Your kitchen sink will be piled up with a good load of greasy, oily dishes almost every other day and it is nothing less than an ordeal to clean the mess up. But just as you are about to tackle that back-breaking load, you notice something awful: a putrid, clogged drain – could there be anything worse and at such an inopportune time, too? Things come to a screeching halt and you almost start praying that your guests miss the chaos. The first thing you think of doing is to stalling everything you had planned to accomplish and wait till a plumber rescues you from this sudden catastrophe. But before you jump to conclusions, why not try a hand at it yourself? It is not a Herculean task to unclog a kitchen drain, if you have some patience and the necessary tools. Not only can you get the job done in a span of just a few minutes, you can even save a buck or two in the bargain. So you just need to put on your gloves, get some necessary tools, and you are all set for it. Find some easy tips on how you can unclog your kitchen drain.

Get Rid Of Clogged Kitchen Drain

The first thing that you need to check for is whether your sink has a stopper or strainer. It is often around this area that accumulated particles create a block. Remove the screws of a strainer using a screwdriver and pull it out. Wash away the particles, if any, that have accumulated on it and pour some water into the drain to clean it off at the top. Sometimes, this will suffice in unclogging the drain.
Pour some hot water (preferably boiling) into the kitchen sink. You will see the clog disappear in a jiffy.
Just as inevitable salt is to almost all your cooking, so it is to cleaning; salt is versatile enough even as a de-clogger. For clearing a clog, add ½ a cup of table salt into the drain and let it stay for half an hour. Then flush the drain with water.
Since both salt and hot water are equally effective in clearing clogs, hot salt water will be quite the cure. Pour some generous amount of hot salt water into the sink, which will unclog the drain in a few minutes.
Otherwise notorious as health hazards, colas can certainly come in handy in cleaning clogs in your drain. Try pouring 1 can of cola (of any type) into your clogged drain. If it is aerated enough, it will clear your clog well.
Baking powder also works very well for clearing clogs. If you combine baking soda with vinegar it will be more than efficient in clearing a clog. Mix ½ a cup of vinegar with ½ a cup of baking powder. It might fizz a little. Pour this mixture into the kitchen drain. Leave it in for a few minutes and see how that clog disappears in minutes.
Almost all minor clogs can be cleared using a plunger. For that you need to first fill your sink half with water and then start plunging. If it is a double –bowl sink, stuff one sink with a wet rag while plunging the other, and then repeat similarly with the other bowl.
If that is not helping, you can use an auger wire or a plumber’s snake. You can put the auger wire into the drain pipe through the strainer hole. Once the hook of the plumber’s snake finds the clog, turn the handle and then pull the snake back. It will come out with that nasty clog!
Prevention is better than cure, so it is better to keep your drain clog-free and odorless. Using non-corrosive drain cleaner weekly will also help you to keep your drain clog-free.
Yet another trick lies in mixing 1 cup baking soda and 1 cup table salt into ¼th cup cream of tartar. Stir everything well and pour into a clean, lidded bottle. Pour ¼ cup of this mixture into the drain, followed by 1 cup of boiling water. Wait for 10 seconds, flush with cold water, and lo, your drain starts working just fine!

How to Cite

Related Articles

See also

More in 'Home & Living'