i thought it was just me and my pipes too!
i notice the sink slows every 3 months or so - worse with bigelow - maybe it;s the clay in it?
i notice the sink slows every 3 months or so - worse with bigelow - maybe it;s the clay in it?
Wet shaving clogs drains faster?
- Thread starter Trench
- Start date
OldSaw
The wife's investment
Traps are designed to hold water and of the hundreds that I have taken apart, I have only found a clog in the trap once. A tenant poured tallow down the drain at night and forgot to run copious amounts of hot water after it to rinse it down. Once the fat set, the only way to clear it out was to open it up.
Removing the trap does make cleaning the pipes much easier though. Most clogs occur from hair hanging onto the stopping mechanism above the trap or in the horizontal part after the trap that leads to the larger vertical drain.
Soooo... if you don't want to take the trap apart and still get the hair out, get a Zip-it clog cleaning strip. They are fairly cheap, very effective and can be tossed after using. I get them at Menards when I need them and almost never take a trap apart anymore.
ive never had this problem with the goo. wonder if it will start with the creams?
I had some issues last fall so I gave it a kettle of boiling water and a couple of hits with the plunger and no more issues. I turned up the water heater to 135 and I let it run for a minute or two after I rinse out the sink.
You're kidding, right? Who would... Uh, actually, I believe that.
But you still get the service call!
I'm sooo going to try these out. That looks so much easier than taking the drain apart and snaking it.
I have also noticed this. Fixed it with Drano a while back and it has been slowing down again. Will have to try one of them snake things and the Vinegar/Soda trick. Now I just need to figure out how to get the water to stay in the sink when I close the stopper...
The snake will open up the pipe better than chemicals. They're also inexpensive, "green", and reusable. It's small work to get the stopper out of a bathroom sink and snake it, but be prepared for some noxious gunk on the end when you finish 
I use a sink plunger. It's significantly smaller than a toilet plunger and really clears the pipes when I need it to. If that doesn't work I use a small manual hand auger. If that won't free the mess, I'll just disassemble the pipe under the sink and clear it out that way. Majority of my clogs are the section of pipe that is in a shape of a "U" connecting the vertical down pipe with the pipe attached to the sink basin.
FWIW, I quit using Drano and other chemical based de-cloggers. They never seemed effective for the long term fix.
FWIW, I quit using Drano and other chemical based de-cloggers. They never seemed effective for the long term fix.
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I've never had my sink clog after many years of wet shaving. However, there seems to be enough anecdotal conversation to warrant further contemplation. I wonder if tallow based soaps are prone to form clogs in the sink traps as they are generally are solid at room temperature?
I just got a new sink and pipes. Works like a dream! The old one had brown gunk in it. Plumber had no idea what it was. We think the other sink has the same gunk as well, and that's what's slowing it down. Any idea what said stuff is?
