How to Unclog a Drain

There’s always an adventure brewing at the little house on Pine. Since becoming homeowners (almost 5 years!), we’ve both built an array of skills: wiring lights, learning about insulation, hanging shelves, building a window seat bench…

and most recently, learning how to unclog a drain, using items we already have in the kitchen!

It started backing up a few weeks ago, but it wasn’t ever too much trouble at once, the water would always drain eventually. But yesterday, it reached a tipping point; while the sink would still drain, the water reached new levels and would only drain slowly. After consulting our friend Google, we decided to buy a 25′ “snake” to loosen anything that would stop the water from draining. While it helped pull debris from the pipes, it didn’t solve the slow draining issue.

So we moved to plan #2: create a chemical reaction. Based on advice from a friend and from searching Google again, we created just the right concoction.

After a few minutes, we removed the towels and slowly poured a teapot full of hot water down the drain.

We repeated the whole process twice; once was not enough. After the second time, we used mini plungers to help force the rest of the water down the pipes, and they drained! So far today, everything looks good–no more clogged drain!

A silly, but useful, adventure! I feel like a total Radical Homemaker after conquering this. The “easy” solution may have been to call a plumber (believe me, if we had any friends who were plumbers, we would’ve invited them over and perhaps offered some honey as a barter!), or to pour “helpful” toxic chemicals like Draino down the drain to fix it. But with a little patience, and digging through the kitchen cabinets, we were able to solve the problem!

Of course, we could also just get rid of sinks and drains altogether, but that’s just wishful thinking for this girl!