What’s the most common cause of blocked sinks?

The answer to this question depends on whether it’s a kitchen sink or a bathroom sink.

In a kitchen, one of the most common causes of blocked sinks is a build-up of fat or grease in the “S” bend of the sink.

When you cook with cooking oil or cook meats with a lot of fat in them, the oil or grease is in liquid form when its heated. But when you rinse the frypan or saucepan in the sink, the cold water turns the oil or fat solid very quickly.

Over time the fat and grease can stick to the sides of the drainpipes leading from your sink. This can also happen to fat and grease being rinsed off your dishes in the dishwasher.

Wherever it comes form, this build-up of fat and grease in the drainpipes leading from your sink can accumulate. Then other food substances can stick to the grease and oil over time, leading to a blocked sink.

If you do have a blocked or slow running kitchen sink, the first trick to try and clear it is to pour a kettle full of boiling water down the sink. (Don’t do this with any drain cleaners, just try the hot water first.) Sometimes the boiling water can melt the built-up fat and grease and rinse it away.

But if it doesn’t clean with hot water or any drain cleaner you got from the supermarket, call The Drain Man. Because the problem might be deeper underground and we’ll need to send a camera down your drains to find out what’s going on.

With bathroom sinks the main reason for the blockage is often human hair. In the sink you might ask? Yes, but the hair causing the blockage isn’t going down your bathroom sink, usually it is coming from the shower!

What most people don’t realise is that the drainpipe that leads from your shower, and your bath too, if you have one, joins up with the drainpipe from your bathroom sink before it leads outside your bathroom and down underground.

We lose a lot of hair in the shower, especially women or anyone with long hair. Gradually all this hair gets washed down the shower hole and into the drainpipes where it can meet up with toothpaste and soap and other things coming from the sink and shower or bath.

The combination of all these things joining together in the drain, can lead to massive “hair balls” forming in the drainpipes which of course block everything up.

Sometimes, you can use the boiling hot water trick to break up and melt the toothpaste and soap holding the hairball together, but this often doesn’t work because the hair won’t melt!

Just like a kitchen sink, if a blocked bathroom sink, shower or bath, won’t clear easily with hot water or a supermarket drain cleaning product, then you need to call The Drain Man.

Usually we will find the real cause of the blockage is deep underground in your drainpipes. It might be fat and grease, it might be hair and toothpaste but it might be something worse.

It could be tree-roots getting into the drain through a crack or break in the drain. The drain could have collapsed, especially if it’s an old drain. Or there might be a million other reasons.

Either way, whenever you call or book The Drain Man, we will put our camera down your drain and show you what we find. Then we will clear it fast using our high-pressure water jet or other drain clearing equipment.

If the drain needs repairing, we can fix it without digging up your garden, backyard or driveway. And it’s a lot cheaper than digging too.

Call us on 1800 843 372 or send an enquiry form at https://www.thedrainman.com.au/contact