How to Unclog a Sink: Kitchen & Bathroom Drain Solutions

Most people think a clogged sink is some kind of emergency. Its not. I’ve been fixing drains for thirty years and I can tell you that ninety percent of the time, the problem is sitting six inches below your sink in something called a P-trap, and you can fix it yourself in about fifteen minutes with a bucket and maybe a wrench.

The other ten percent isnt hard either. You just need to know what youre dealing with.

Kitchen Sink vs Bathroom Sink Clogs

Heres the thing nobody tells you: kitchen sink clogs and bathroom sink clogs are completely different problems. Same symptom, different cause. If you treat them the same way, youre going to waste time.

Kitchen sinks clog because of grease, food scraps, and stuff that shouldnt have gone down the drain in the first place. Coffee grounds. Eggshells. Rice that expands. Roto-Rooter’s drain experts put it clearly: kitchen sinks are prone to clogs from grease, food scraps, coffee grounds, and soap residue. Thats the list. Memorize it.

Bathroom sinks clog because of hair. Period. Some soap scum, sure, but mostly hair. The American Academy of Dermatology says people shed between 50 and 100 hairs a day. Where do you think those hairs go when youre washing your face or brushing your teeth over the sink. Straight down. They collect. They combine with soap residue. They form a disgusting clump that looks like something from a horror movie.

I have four kids. Three of them have gone through the bathroom sink phase where they just let hair accumulate like its someone elses problem. Richard is the worst. Ive had the same conversation with him probably forty times. “Check the drain stopper. Pull the hair out. Do it once a week.” Does he listen. No. So I end up doing it.

Anyway.

How to Unclog a Bathroom Sink

Start with the stopper. Most bathroom sinks have a pop-up stopper connected to that little rod behind the faucet. The stopper collects hair like its trying to. I don’t know, build a nest or something. Pull it out. Clean it off. Put it back. Done.

If thats not the problem, the clog is deeper.

The Boiling Water Method

This works sometimes. Boil a kettle of water, pour it slowly down the drain, wait. The heat can dissolve soap buildup and loosen minor clogs. But heres the thing: Liquid-Plumr warns that you should avoid using boiling water on PVC pipes because it can damage them. Most modern homes have PVC. If you dont know what your pipes are made of, use very hot water from the tap instead of boiling. Not worth melting your plumbing to save a trip under the sink.

The Plunger

Everyone has a plunger for the toilet. Nobody thinks to use one on the sink. Fill the sink with a few inches of water, cover the overflow hole with a wet rag, and plunge straight down. Five or six good pumps. Check if its draining.

This works about half the time for bathroom sinks.

The P-Trap

This is what I tell everyone to do first but nobody listens because they think its complicated. Its not complicated. The P-trap is that curved pipe under your sink, shaped like a P or a U depending on how you look at it, and its designed to hold a little water to block sewer gases from coming up through your drain. It also catches everything that goes down. Hair, rings, earring backs, those little caps from contact lens solution, whatever. Everything collects there because of gravity and the curve of the pipe.

Heres what you do. Put a bucket under the P-trap. Theres usually a slip nut on each end you can unscrew by hand, or use pliers if theyre tight. Unscrew both ends, the whole curved section comes off, you dump out whatever nightmare is inside, clean it out, put it back. Fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty if the nuts are corroded. Bob Vila’s guide confirms what I’ve been saying for years: you can tackle this problem yourself and save hundreds, working time is about 30 minutes, skill level is beginner, and cost is $0 to $50 depending on the method. The P-trap method is the $0 version.

My dad Curtis used to say, about factory work, that the simplest explanation is usually right. Something breaks, you look at the most obvious cause first. Dont overthink it. The P-trap is the most obvious cause for a clogged sink. It catches everything. It should be your first stop, not your last resort.

How to Unclog a Kitchen Sink

Kitchen sinks are a different animal. The clogs tend to be greasier and farther down the line.

The Garbage Disposal Check

If you have a garbage disposal and your kitchen sink is clogged, turn on the disposal first. Seriously. Half the time the disposal is jammed with something, you run it, problem solved. If it hums but doesnt spin, theres something stuck. Turn it off. Never put your hand in there. Use the hex wrench that came with the disposal, theres usually a socket on the bottom, rotate it back and forth to free the blades.

If you dont have a disposal, skip this.

Hot Water and Dish Soap

For grease clogs, this actually works. Squirt a bunch of dish soap down the drain, follow with very hot water, let it sit for ten minutes, then flush with more hot water. The soap breaks up grease. Simple.

I made a kitchen sink clog worse once, years ago, trying to use a plunger on a grease clog. This was in our first house in Texas. The kitchen drain was slow, I figured I’d just plunge it clear, and all I did was push the grease deeper into the line. Turned a slow drain into a complete blockage. Raquel didnt say anything. She didnt have to. Her face said it.

The grease had solidified somewhere in the horizontal run and I had to pull apart half the drain line under the house to find it. Could have avoided the whole thing if I’d just used hot water and soap first.

The P-Trap Again

Same process as the bathroom. Bucket, unscrew, clean, reassemble. Kitchen P-traps tend to have more gunk because of food particles, so have paper towels ready. Its not pleasant.

Drain Snake

If the clog is past the P-trap, you need a drain snake. Also called a drum auger. You can buy one for between $15 and $100 depending on quality. Get one. Use it. Thats it.

Feed it into the drain until you hit resistance, then crank the handle to break through the clog or hook it and pull it out. Not complicated.

What About Chemical Drain Cleaners

Moving on.

Fine. I’ll say this much. They work sometimes. They’re hard on pipes. They’re dangerous if you use them and then have to call a plumber because now there’s caustic chemicals sitting in your drain that can splash on someone. If you’re going to use one, Bob Vila recommends choosing products that meet the EPA Safer Choice standard.

But I’d rather you just take the P-trap apart.

When to Call a Plumber

If you’ve tried the P-trap, you’ve tried the snake, and water still wont drain, call someone. The clog is probably in the main line or somewhere you cant reach without professional equipment.

HomeAdvisor’s data shows that drain cleaning runs about $242 on average, with most jobs falling between $147 and $345. Thats not cheap but its not catastrophic either. And plumbers will typically charge between $100 and $300 for common household drains. Main sewer line blockages cost more, $150 to $500 or higher.

You can spend $50 on tools and an hour of your time to fix most clogs yourself. Or you can spend $250 and have someone else do it. Your call.

Prevention

My mom Shirley used to say something about this. Something about how prevention is just respect for your future self. She kept the drains in our Atlanta house spotless, ran hot water after every use, never let food sit in the sink. I remember Saturday mornings she’d pour something down the drains, I dont even know what, some mixture she made. She worked at Sears for years and she was meticulous about everything. The house, her appearance, her work. How you do the small things is how you do everything, she used to say. I think about that when I’m cleaning a drain now, which is probably weird but. I don’t know.

For kitchen sinks: scrape plates before rinsing, dont pour grease down the drain ever, run cold water through the disposal while its running. Regular maintenance with the methods in our how to clean a sink drain guide will keep things flowing.

For bathroom sinks: get a drain cover that catches hair, clean it weekly, clean the stopper monthly.

Roto-Rooter recommends professional drain cleaning once a year for long-term maintenance. Thats probably overkill for most people but its not bad advice if you have older pipes or chronic problems.

The Tools You Actually Need

A bucket. Slip-joint pliers or channel locks. A drain snake. A wet rag for covering overflow holes. A flashlight.

Total cost: maybe $40 if you have nothing.

Keep them under the sink. When the drain clogs, and it will eventually because drains clog, you wont have to run to the hardware store. Youll just fix it. Thats what we do here at Homevisory.

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