If you don’t mind getting your hands dirty, there’s a great deal you can do to fix a clogged sink yourself. Here are a few steps you can take to fix the problem yourself before you need to call the pros to take care of it for you:
- Plunge it. If your sink has two drains, stuff a wet rag into one side. Fill the other side partially with water, place the plunger over the drain, and work the plunger up and down vigorously. Quickly remove the plunger: if you’re lucky, the pressure will break up the blockage and the sink will drain. If not, then…
- Grab your pipe wrench and remove the trap (the curved part of the pipe) under the sink (with some sinks, you can dispense with the wrench and do it by hand). Empty the water of the trap into a bucket and double-check to make sure it’s not the trap that’s clogged.
- If you have a cable auger, it’s time to pull it out. Remove the horizontal trap arm (the bit of pipe that hooks into the wall itself). Feed the cable into the stub out (the hole in the wall) until you feel some resistance. Pull the cable out eighteen inches and tighten the lock screw. Crank the handle clockwise and push forward to drive the cable deeper into the pipe. Then pull it out eighteen inches, repeating until you break up the blockage.
- Put things back together and plunge briefly to ensure that the blockage doesn’t settle back into the pipe.
Of course, if things aren’t working out for you by this point, it’s time to call a Utah plumber to take care of it for you.
