I have read many ways to unclog a drain. I have also tried many ways. However, the one way that has always worked for me is "Rapidly Boiling Water." I just boil several pots of water and pour them down the drain. I have used this in the kitchen sink and bathroom sink as well as a toilet and shower. It has never let me down.
Note: Take as much liquid out of the sink as possible. Then keep pouring the boiling water until it starts to drain. Keep doing this until it drains normally. It may take several trips. If you still need to plunge - WAIT UNTIL THE WATER COOLS (you don't want to burn yourself with any splash)
By Compltlyme from Sammamish, WA
This page contains the following solutions.
My daughter dropped her diamond down the drain. She called a local plumber who said there would be a service call charge of $55.00 plus a charge to locate the ring. I called my brother in law who does plumbing.
If you do any replacement work on your plumbing, double check the job the next day, a week later, a month later to make sure that no leaks develop.
Label the parts of the electrical and plumbing systems that lurk in your basement. Identify each fuse or circuit breaker, hot and cold water shutoffs, heating system controls, gas and water meters, and drain clean-out access covers.
Toilet tip from Syd deals with a plumbing problem when a plunger won't help. This is one most of us don't think about.
Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
How much will it cost for a plumber to run a snake down my sewage drain?
We have places that do it for $49.95. That is all they do.
Every town is different. Where I am the prices range from 60-160 dollars.
If you don't have a regular plumber, be sure to read Yelp reviews and ask friends for a recommendation.
If you are super handy, Home Depot and Lowes (at least where I am) rent snakes and you can do it yourself for very little. Depending on who waits on you, some of the workers are very knowledgeable and can tell you exactly how to do it.
Something to think about! Post back with an update!
The cost varies from state to states and depending on what company you go with. Some states or companies do it for as low as $50 and the prices go up from there. In order to find a decent plumber in your area you will need to search online and read what they say about the plumbers.
How can I fix a slow shower drain?
By steve from Pa
I used the method that has been posted several times on Thriftyfun for unstopping a toilet. Pour Dawn dish detergent down the drain and let it sit a few minutes. Then pour boiling water down drain. Afterwards, I used the plunger and it unstopped the drain immediately. Amazing.
Before you try using a drain cleaner try using a baby bottle brush. Get one that has a wire type handle so it can be bent. When you get it in twirl it around and in and out to get hair and debris dislodged.
The Dawn/plunger route worked great! Thanks for the tip!
I need to get a new washer and dryer. I live in a 40+ year old house and I have been told that the outlet hose for the washers in these old houses are 1 1/2 inches. The new washers use 2 inch hoses. I don't even know where to go to get an answer or what to do. Does anyone have any advice? I sure would appreciate it. Thanks.
By abigailprettycat from Portland, OR
Go to your local hardware store and tell them that you need an adapter for your washer hose that will fit what you need at your house. Although our house and washer are a lot closer in age than your two, we still had to get an adapter to make it fit right.
You can ask at various stores before making your purchase. A lot of stores will hook them up for you and will even haul away the old ones. Lowe's and Home Depot are a couple of stores that come to mind.
I recently had major plumbing work performed in my master bathroom. They had to remove the tiles in my shower to get to the pipes. Upon completion of the work including re-tilng of the shower, there seems to be a lingering strong chemical smell.
Invite the local Plumbing Inspector over for his/her opinion..
I'm not sure if this will work, but try setting several bowls of baking soda in the room and close the door to see if that will absorb the smell. Change every couple of days with fresh baking soda. Good Luck
My toilet is plugged up and when I flush the toilet water comes out of the bottom of the toilets and in the showers. I'm unemployed and am a mother of a 2yr old boy.
It is starting to smell really bad it's been about a week that it's been plugged.You can contact a church or Habitat for Humanity. You are going to rot out your subfloors if you don't take care of this.
If you are unemployed, I believe you are paying rent. This is a problem for your landlord to take care of. Furthermore, this is a health hazard and dangerous for you and your son. You should immediately call the landlord and get him there to fix this problem.
Otherwise, if you own your home then you're going to have to do this one on your own. What you can try is a few faithful tricks that I have found to work quite well.
Bring your garden hose in the house and stuff it as far down the toilet as possible. Now turn it on full force and see if you can lodge the clog loose. You can also remove the drain screen in the bathtub and do this too. You could have a blockage from hair or something your little 2 year old threw down the toilet.
Any plumbers or roofing contractors out there? I live in Winnipeg, where the temperature is usually -35 to -45 degrees Celsius for 6 months of the year. This summer I put a new roof on my house. Now I have a big problem! My "stink stack" keeps freezing over! This never happened before. My house was built in 1935 and is a story and a half. It has a Cape Cod style roof (very steep angle), we put ice dam stuff on it and asphalt shingles.
I lived in northern MN, in a two story house. In the fall before really cold weather set in we would always climb up on the roof and drop an electric heater element, designed for that job, into the vent. You have to run an electric cord outside to it somehow, of course. The extension cord would keep the heater element in proper position.
Never a problem with freezing. The element was a very low-wattage gadget and well worth the cost of the power to keep the vent open.
The fastest thing to do (make sure you get someone to help or do this if you cannot climb ladders, roofs). Get a heat tape. One house we lived in/owned had one up year round. It makes so sense if you get it up there right to remove it. You need it when you can't get back up there! You can find them at a hardware store, farm store,etc. Just picked one up for my son and it was a 6 foot for $30. Don't be fooled by the single use heat tape wrap. You need the one you plug into another extension cord and run to electricity.
THEN, when it is clear, make sure you flush and run hot water in all the sinks/toilets daily. You will know when it gets slow and plug it in to take care of the problem.
URGENT. With it being frozen over, you have back up possibilities of sewer gas into the house. You may become sick or even DIE from the back up. I would call your local plumber or the carpenters to return to assist you with getting the heat tape up there. You just need to do a spiral wrap around the pipe, like a candy cane stripe.
The reason for a stack is to provide air so the sinks, toilets, tubs etc. can drain properly and also to allow gases to escape. If you have more than one stack - escaping gas will be no problem it has a way to leave. when the stack freezes over - it blocks the air from getting in - you will hear your drains bubbleing when it is trying to drain - the bathrooms especially when the toilet is flushed.
An Inline vent(a one way valve that lets air in and keeps other gases out) installed under the kitchen sink will give you the air flow you need. You can purchase one at Home Depot in the plumbing Dept and it shows on the packaging how to install it.
My hubby is a retired contractor; I'm not. Hope I can express his suggestion clearly.
He wondered if you had installed a flange between the "stink pipe" and roofing, or tarred around it on installation. Also, I believe there's a cap of some sort, like a chimney cap. He suggests wrapping insulating tape or tar paper around the thing.
Thanks people. Yes, we put a metal flange around the stack and tarred it. The toilets do not bubble, neither do the sinks. There never was a cap over the stack, and none of the other houses in the neighborhood have caps, either. I can't find a heater element, such as you describe, in any of the plumbing or construction supply stores here. They tell me they have never heard of them.
So I went to run a bath and only a little water came out. Then it stopped. There is no water to the bath, sink, washing room, and toilet. The kitchen only has cold water. Can anyone help?
Get a plummer - I assume you were at one time getting water in these items.
Have you paid your water bill? In my town, if one is late with payment, they shut your water off without notice, so that they can collect a late payment fee of $50 when you storm into the town office to pay your bill!! If have water to the kitchen and no where else, it is time to call a plumber! You've got major problems and our long distance advice is not going to be of any value.
We had dirty water from a frozen pipe. I did my undies, some are white, and now they are yellowed from the dirty water. This happened on Saturday. They fixed the pipe, but here it is Wednesday and this happened. When will my water clear up?
By flower51
Phone the people in charge of your water treatment plant/water service, and find out what they say. There is no way we can help you with this problem when we don't live where you do. Perhaps there is some other issue that causes this, or perhaps it isn't fixed properly.
When you are expecting cold weather, you want insulate any outside water faucet. You can fashion your own cover by reusing a plastic bottle and styrofoam cups. This is a page about how to make an outside faucet cover for freezing weather.
This is a page about keeping a toilet from overflowing. A few simple steps can help you prevent the disastrous toilet overflow event.
This is a page about unclogging a shower drain. Shower drains routinely become clogged with soap residue and hair.
This is a page about fixing leaky faucets. Leaky faucets are a common problem that you can sometimes fix yourself.
