Around the House

#38 · Drain unblocker

Poke through drainage holes in a blocked flower pot or sink overflow. Unpleasant? Yes. Effective? Also yes.

The clog in a bathroom basin is almost never deep in the pipework. It is a mat of hair and soap scum sitting in the first few centimetres below the plughole, right where you can see it, and a chopstick will hook most of it out in under a minute.

This is worth doing before you reach for chemical drain cleaner. Caustic products work by dissolving the blockage, which means they sit in the trap doing nothing useful if the real obstruction is a physical mat above it - and they are unpleasant to have standing in a basin you then have to lean over.

How to do it

Put on rubber gloves. This is not a squeamishness thing; it is a bacteria thing.
Lift out the plug or unscrew the drain cover if yours comes out.
Feed the chopstick down until you feel resistance, then twist it slowly so the hair winds around the wood.
Pull up steadily rather than yanking - you want the whole mat, not the top half of it.
Repeat until nothing more comes up.
Flush a full kettle of very hot water through to clear the residue you disturbed.

Why it works

Hair snags on the grille and on the pivot rod of a pop-up waste, then soap scum and skin oils bind it into a mat that catches everything after it. A thin rod with a slightly rough surface is well suited to twisting into that mat and lifting it as one piece.

If it isn't working

Water still drains slowly with the hair gone: the blockage is further down. A hand-turned drain snake from any hardware shop is the next step.
You can't reach past the pop-up waste: most unscrew or lift out with a quarter turn once the pivot rod behind the basin is loosened.
It re-blocks within weeks: fit a hair catcher over the plughole. They cost a couple of pounds and end the problem entirely.

Tips & warnings

Boiling water is fine for metal and ceramic, but use hot-tap water on plastic traps and shower trays.
A chopstick reaches maybe 20cm. Beyond that you want the right tool.