In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Abso wrote:

BillV wrote:


"Owain" wrote in message
...
"Abso" wrote
My washing m/c, which is connected for drainage at the kitchen
sink has just almost flooded the kitchen by means of
overfilling the sink when draining. Now I'm no expert, but
that tells me there's a blockage between the sink and the
main drain.
I've tried a traditional plunger on the kitchen sink, and a
syringe type plunger but both merely blow crap out of the
overflow (straight down my shirt, lovely). I can't think
of a way to block the overflow to increase the pressure

Someone else holding a wet rag firmly over the overflow hole whilst
you attend to the plug hole.

so I'm looking for alternatives.
I've come across the Mr Muscle range of two products, details
he http://www.mrmuscleonline.co.uk/page3.html
.. is this kind of product any good? Are there alternative
approaches I could use? TIA.

They are effective if the blockage is in the sink trap. They are
not as
much
use if the blockage is further down.

Go to Plumbase and ask for the strong "One Shot" drain cleaner...
officially only sold to the "trade" (whatever that is) and comes with
all sorts of dire H&S warnings.
Basically its 80%+ H2SO4 and will shift most things; inc presumably
cast iron drains :-)

Well, I never made it to the plumber's merchant but I was in Waitrose
and saw Mr Muscle sink + plughole unblocker on sale, so I decided to
invest 4 GBP in this (on the recommendation of a couple of
contributors to this thread). Having checked the label I can report
that Mr Muscle is composed of Sodium Hydroxide (which IIRC is the
same as caustic soda) and some other stuff. On reflection, and
considering the way in which this tale unfolds, it's just as well I
didn't get my hands on the ultra strong stuff that you recommended.

So anyway, Mr Muscle in my sweaty palms I carefully unscrewed the top
and discharged the whole bottle into the sink trap as directed.
Reassured not to have splashed it anywhere near my eyes I retired a
safe distance and waited over twice the recommended duration of 30mins
before coming back to it. Naturally I was full of anticipation as I
turned on the tap to find....
... the sink filling at the same rate as before. Bugger.

Two days passed in which I did nothing but resent the whole kitchen.
By last night it still hadn't learned its lesson and still the sink
was blocked, so I resigned myself to getting my hands dirty. Now I'm
not one of the world's most gifted plumbers, in fact it would be more
accurate to say that I'm a one man plumbing disaster zone (My toilet
has the permanent fixture of a drip-catching bowl beneath the cistern
ever since I upgraded it to a flushmaster mechanism and my dishwasher
and WM drain into a McAlpine trap topped by a plastic bag secured with
a cable tie.)

So perhaps it's no surprise that I was later to be found clumsily
twisting to and fro an elbow connector under the sink, only to find
that it gave with a jerk and splashed its contents into my eyes. Now
having read some of the contributions in this thread re. caustic soda
in eyes you can imagine that I was less than thrilled about the
situation and so I proceeded without delay to the shower where I spent
20 mins trying to achieve the difficult trick of looking onto the
water spray without blinking.

One trip to A&E later and having had yellow stain put into my eyes and
a huge great telescope of an eye 'scope pointed my way I'm pleased to
report that my initial eye wash shifted all the nasty stuff and I only
have a precautionary antibiotic ointment course to complete.

If there's a moral to this story is that it's a good idea to wear eye
protection when disassembling a sink trap into which you've previously
poured a heavier than water drain cleaner which is likely to be still
hanging around.

Ho hum.


Yes, but have you now cleared the blockage by dismantling it? I suspected
that you would need to do this - as stated in an earlier reply. It's often
the best way, and if you do it *before* putting any nasty chemicals down the
plug-hole, you're less likely to end up in A&E.
--
Cheers,
Set Square
______
Please reply to newsgroup. Reply address is invalid.