Things I now own

[caramel_betty]

Prior to this morning, I didn't own a sink plunger. I now have one. £1.98 from B&Q.I was sat in my living room last night, and heard a noise. No, that's not from the radio. Looks to the kitchen. Okay, the washing up bowl shouldn't be floating on top of the sink

Comments

[nalsa]

The Mr Muscle stuff that comes in a blue bottle that foams is brilliant at that sort of thing.

[samholloway]

Caution, though - it can be *too* brilliant. Don't use it unattended and have plenty of cloths standing by. It has a habit of blowing out dodgy joints in your plumbing!

[caramel_betty]

Ooh, interesting. I hadn't previously heard any particularly positive reviews of any of these things, so had never really bothered with them. Will see if I can venture out to Waitrose or the semi-nearby proper-but-small Tesco at some point.

[oldbloke]

Bleach kills germs, you want something to dissolve fats. If you use the vinegar and bicarb together, you get a toy volcano, I think.
Sodium hydroxide would be good, maybe.

In our house it usually happens because we handwash dishes quite rarely, so sometimes fats get a chance to solidify. I generally spray a good whack of washing up liquid round the plug then pour a kettleful of boiling water into it. Do that 3 times and it's usually fixed, in tandem with poking a kebab skewer down the holes. Then bleach to disinfect the sink from all the gunk that's been hanging around.

[caramel_betty]

Bleach kills germs, you want something to dissolve fats. If you use the vinegar and bicarb together, you get a toy volcano, I think.

I was planning to use the vinegar and bicarb first, and the bleach after. The sink also needs bleaching because it now smells of crap.

Various places recommend vinegar and bicarb for degunking pipes, though - typically with hot water. http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/interiors/article1423247.ece

(I can now run water through the sink, at least. It drains within a few seconds.)

Sodium hydroxide would be good, maybe.

Ooh, yes. I wonder how easy that will be to find in shops round here - or whether it's the active ingredient in other pipe-cleaning stuff.

[mhoulden]

Caustic soda (as it's also known) is pretty common for clearing drains and most hardware stores should sell it.

I could tell you the fun I had clearing a blocked drain with the aid of marigolds and a bin liner, but that's just too gross to recount.

[caramel_betty]

Caustic soda (as it's also known) is pretty common for clearing drains and most hardware stores should sell it.

I almost wrote that I couldn't think of a good hardware store round here - other than heading back to Homebase/B&Q by car.

Finding random bits of tools, plugs, adaptors and other assorted crap is sometimes annoying. Electrical stuff got a bit easier when Argos opened a branch nearby, for days when the market isn't running. My local non-chain department store has occasionally been helpful for haberdashery type stuff, but it went upmarket recently and a lot of that has been pushed to one side. Finding random bits of stuff that you'd find in, say, an old-fashioned ironmongers is also a pain.

It's not specific to here - my parents' place in Birmingham is similar. Lots of high streets seem to be losing stuff like this, although that's not altogether surprising, I guess. Who needs random tools and nails and things when they come in a flatpack from Ikea?

[k425]

By dint of being unable to undo the trap, you have missed the step most people I know trip over:

Unscrew sink trap
Empty into sink
Curse as crud pours back down plughole over your head.

[juggzy]

You can get something from Tesco - comes in a dingy green bottle, badly made - called sink buster, or drain buster or something like that. I suspect it's basically an alkaline solid. The bottle contains blue crystals which they warn you should *not* be inhaled, and you chuck a capful of them down the sink every week or so (I managed to do it, on average, fortnightly) after having poured boiling water down the plug hole, leave it half an hour, pour some more boiling water and then let the tap run for a bit.

Keeps the sink drain v. clear, not smelly and is probably dilute enough not to harm the environment, after you've poured all that water down it. Recommended. It's also cheap.

[juggzy]

Yes, here it is:

http://www.tesco.com/superstore/xpi/8/xpi54907738.htm

I found it much better than Mr Muscle for what it's worth. Little and often.