Categories
DIY

Drain Pipe Angioplasty

A possible solution for annoying drains clogs.

One of my favorite nuggets of wisdom I remember is one that originated with my Dad’s Dad. It’s pretty straight forward: “There are two types of people in this world, fools and plumbers.”

I remember this anytime something goes wrong with something plumbing related in the house. The main problem is that plumbers are expensive and difficult to get to show up for anything that isn’t a 3+ hour job. Thus, when the drain for the sink gets clogged, I’m pretty much forced into the role of “fool.”

The Wife texted me 2 weeks ago about the kitchen sink getting backed up. I was out at a racquetball game at the time. I came home and the next morning, tried to flush it with Drano or Liquid Plumber or what-have-you to no avail. So I snaked it, got things flowing again and declared victory.

The Wife texted me a week ago about the kitchen sink getting backed up. I was pretty sure I’d been down this road before since, once again, I was at racquetball. Once again, the next morning I snaked the pipe and unclogged it. Once again, I declared victory.

The Wife texted me on Monday that the sink was clogged. I came home from racquetball (of course) and tried things out and the sink seemed to be draining, so I left it. I wasn’t declaring victory, though.

Last night, the Wife texted me a picture of the sink backed up.

Based on my previous failures, I hypothesized that I was dealing with a grease plug that my snake was penetrating but not really clearing. What I needed was something that could essentially scrape the inner wall of the pipe all the way to the junction with the 4 inch pipe at the other end. I toyed with the idea of a Franken-monster snake with pipe cleaners attached to it. After a bit, I decided a trip to a HIC might be worth the trip for a decent solution.

So today I went to Lowe’s and came home with one of these:

It wasn’t this one exactly. The one I got was appropriate for the pipe size I was dealing with.

After digging out and thawing out a garden hose from our attic, I went to work. The instructions say to insert the bladder into the pipe, then turn the water on to full blast to use water pressure to clear out the pipe.

I didn’t follow directions.

Instead, I snaked that sucker down through the pipe. It turned out to be a bit tricky since the coupling between the hose and the bladder made it difficult to navigate through the couple of right-angle turns in my pipeline. It also got hung up at pipe junctions. But, it did push down through a good ways. At that point, I got brave and had the Wife turn on the water, slowly. (I also made sure to have a bucket under the pipe where I was working.) After a few seconds water came pouring out the pipe. So I still had a clog.

So I continued to work the thing down through the pipe. My next attempt with the water went better. Nothing came back up the pipe and when I went into the basement, I could hear the water rushing through the pipe system.

So consider this a somewhat endorsement of the device. Note that, if you choose to use it as instructed you’ll need to make sure there aren’t alternative trunks between the bladder and the plug for water to flow through. No pressure that way and you might get water unexpectedly running up through a sink elsewhere in the house. Also, if there are a lot of turns in the drain pipe, then it will be very difficult to “snake” the pipe with this and a garden hose. The 2 right angles I had to deal with were difficult enough. If you’re situation meets these conditions, then this little device can perform a nice little bit of drain pipe angioplasty.

So yes, I’m once again declaring victory. Third time’s the charm and all that.

3 replies on “Drain Pipe Angioplasty”

Hmmm….
Here’s hoping that the old adage holds true and you can declare that .. “third time IS A charm” … Rather than 3 times a fool …
Plumbing … The great equalizer …

Hmmm….
Here’s hoping that the old adage holds true and you can declare that .. “third time IS A charm” … Rather than 3 times a fool …
Plumbing … The great equalizer …

Hmmm….
Here’s hoping that the old adage holds true and you can declare that .. “third time IS A charm” … Rather than 3 times a fool …
Plumbing … The great equalizer …

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *