pasadena_commut
Well-Known Member
Our kitchen sink tends to jam up and not drain well. The drain pipe apparently makes a 90 degree turn in the wall, to a smaller diameter pipe, and that seems to be where gunk sticks. (Probably not a T in the wall , as there is a window just above it.) Anyway, I had previously tried pouring a ton of Dawn down it and that didn't help. Gallons of very hot water would sometimes clear it out a bit, for a while. Shooting water up that pipe from the clean out (just below it) usually worked, but it was a messy job requiring my special clean out tool - a bit of sealed PVC pipe with one small hole on the side near the tip, screwed onto a hose.
Then one day my wife shows up in the kitchen with a full 50oz refill bottle of Softsoap which had gone off that she wanted to throw out. It was cloudy, smelled very strongly of perfume, and because it was cold in the house, it was stiff almost to the point of being chunky. It was probably a couple of years old - she had bought it and forgot about it. So we poured it all down the drain on the side without the disposal, then once it was all in, washed it down with some hot water. Bingo, it completely cleared whatever blockage had been in there. It has stayed clear for a couple of months. Dawn and Softsoap are nearly the same thing in terms of detergent properties, but in terms of physical properties they are quite different. My best guess is that the viscous Softsoap was able to wash all the way to the top of the pipe, releasing whatever was stuck there, so now we have a pipe which can fill to the top, rather than just fill a bit along the bottom.
In any case, if anybody else has a similar issue, a bottle of Softsoap, or probably any similar generic, is an inexpensive and pretty harmless form of drain cleaner, and seems to be effective in at least this one case.
Then one day my wife shows up in the kitchen with a full 50oz refill bottle of Softsoap which had gone off that she wanted to throw out. It was cloudy, smelled very strongly of perfume, and because it was cold in the house, it was stiff almost to the point of being chunky. It was probably a couple of years old - she had bought it and forgot about it. So we poured it all down the drain on the side without the disposal, then once it was all in, washed it down with some hot water. Bingo, it completely cleared whatever blockage had been in there. It has stayed clear for a couple of months. Dawn and Softsoap are nearly the same thing in terms of detergent properties, but in terms of physical properties they are quite different. My best guess is that the viscous Softsoap was able to wash all the way to the top of the pipe, releasing whatever was stuck there, so now we have a pipe which can fill to the top, rather than just fill a bit along the bottom.
In any case, if anybody else has a similar issue, a bottle of Softsoap, or probably any similar generic, is an inexpensive and pretty harmless form of drain cleaner, and seems to be effective in at least this one case.
