How to Clear a Blocked Drain Yourself (and When to Call a Pro)

Most blocked drains start small, a sink that empties slowly, a gully that holds water after rain. Catch it early and you can often clear a blocked drain yourself with gear you already have. Leave it, and a partial blockage becomes a full backup at the worst time. Here is how to tackle it at home, and how to tell when it is past the DIY stage.

Work out which drain is blocked

Before you start, figure out how far the problem goes. If only one fixture is slow, the blockage is local and you have a good chance of clearing it yourself. If several fixtures are slow, or the lowest drain in the house (often an outside gully) is backing up, the blockage is in the main line and DIY will not reach it.

Try these first

For a single slow sink, basin or floor drain, work through these in order:

• Clear the obvious. Pull out hair, scrape food from the strainer, lift the pop-up plug and clean it. A surprising number of “blockages” are just gunk sitting in the top of the waste.
• Boiling water (metal and ceramic only). For a greasy kitchen sink, a kettle of boiling water poured in two or three goes can melt soft fat. Skip this if you have PVC pipes, hot water can soften the joints.
• Plunger. Block the overflow hole with a wet cloth, run enough water to cover the plunger cup, and pump firmly a dozen times keeping the seal. This shifts most blockages close to the surface.
• Bicarb and vinegar. Half a cup of bicarb soda followed by half a cup of white vinegar, left to fizz for fifteen minutes then flushed with hot water, can break down a mild build-up. It is gentle on pipes, unlike harsh chemical cleaners.

A drain snake for tougher blockages

If the simple fixes do not work, a hand-operated drain snake (or auger) is the next step. You feed the cable into the pipe until you hit the blockage, then crank the handle to either break it up or hook it and pull it back out. They are cheap from the hardware store and work well on hair and soft blockages within a few metres of the fixture.

Go gently. Forcing a snake around a bend can scratch the pipe, and on old, brittle pipes it can do real damage. If you cannot get past the blockage, do not keep ramming it, stop there.

When DIY will not cut it

It is time to call a plumber when:

• The blockage keeps coming back within days. A recurring blockage usually means roots or a damaged pipe in the line, not something a plunger can fix.
• More than one fixture is affected, which points to a blockage in the main blocked drain the whole house shares.
• An outdoor gully or the lowest drain is overflowing, especially with sewage. Stop using water and call straight away.

At that point the right tools are a high-pressure water jetter, which actually scours the pipe clean rather than punching a hole through the blockage, and a CCTV drain camera to find the real cause so it does not just come back.

If you are in Newcastle and the blockage has beaten the bucket and the snake, give us a call. We are a 24/7 local service, we quote a fixed price up front, and we find and fix the actual cause, not just the symptom.