I’d like to take this opportunity to let the folks who make the “Plung-R” drain cleaning device know that their product really sucks.
It also blows.
And it got the water flowing through the drains in the Condo’s bathroom sink.
I’d ruined a perfectly good plumbers snake trying to clear things out of there last week. At some point the drain either makes a turn that the snake can’t negotiate or it hits a plug that it can’t cut through. Either way, it was tough enough to uncoil a good chunk of the snake, kinking it beyond usability. So off I went to the local home repair superstore where I got a new snake, a bottle of two-part foaming drain cleaner and this contraption called a “Plung-R”.
Basically, the idea is simple. It’s a thermos-sized hand pump with a rubber collar that fits snugly over the drain hole. It works like a hyperactive plunger. After plugging up the overflow drain, you just pump away. The alternating pressure and vacuum was enough to dislodge whatever cruft was plugging the bathroom sink. I did a couple of wash / rinse / repeat cycles with the grease cutter and hot water and eventually I dislodged what looked like a handful of gravel, but which was probably a couple decades worth of pipe scale.
Hanging up in this is probably what killed off the first snake. Combine it with soap and grease and the usual stuff that goes down a sink and you’ve got a sort of low-grade cement. The “Plung-R” was able to suck away whatever chunks the snake had loosened up, and the foaming goo took care of some of the glue. Now all we need to do is keep it clear with occasional applications of mild detergent and “Plung-R” power.