morgaine300
Feb 12, 2010, 02:53 PM
Wow, you get a lot of plumbing questions! I'm not in a hurry, so I can just "bump" this if it gets buried somewhere. No biggie.
I hope I explain this right. For the bathroom sink, there's the (drain) pipe that's sticking out of the wall, the one that hooks to the piece coming off the trap. It only sticks out from the wall a couple of inches. I can't see, but I assume it then is one pipe piece that simply curves downwards.
I was getting slow running way too often and finally took a good look in there. The horizontal part of that pipe was filled up with so much crusted on crap that the actual hole was only about 1/2". (It's a 1-1/4 pipe.) It was very hard and I had to basically chisel it off with a screwdriver.
Well, now then there's the part that heads downwards to the basement. It would be a major job to actually get the pipe out - just trust me on that one. (Yes, even from the basement, which is actually less accessible.)
So I'm wondering if there's some kind of special tool that would get around that corner, or even just something I might have around the house that would work - I've been wracking my brains trying to think of something. Keep in mind, it's crusted on very hard and something like an auger won't cut it. (Not to mention that it's closed off small enough that the auger head won't even go around the corner. So I can't even just clean the regular gunk out.) I need something hard like the screwdriver but that I can use around a corner.
Also, what happens if the stuff I get off just falls into the pipe? Could I potentially be making things worse?
Any ideas? (The pipe is probably iron is that makes any difference at all.)
I hope I explain this right. For the bathroom sink, there's the (drain) pipe that's sticking out of the wall, the one that hooks to the piece coming off the trap. It only sticks out from the wall a couple of inches. I can't see, but I assume it then is one pipe piece that simply curves downwards.
I was getting slow running way too often and finally took a good look in there. The horizontal part of that pipe was filled up with so much crusted on crap that the actual hole was only about 1/2". (It's a 1-1/4 pipe.) It was very hard and I had to basically chisel it off with a screwdriver.
Well, now then there's the part that heads downwards to the basement. It would be a major job to actually get the pipe out - just trust me on that one. (Yes, even from the basement, which is actually less accessible.)
So I'm wondering if there's some kind of special tool that would get around that corner, or even just something I might have around the house that would work - I've been wracking my brains trying to think of something. Keep in mind, it's crusted on very hard and something like an auger won't cut it. (Not to mention that it's closed off small enough that the auger head won't even go around the corner. So I can't even just clean the regular gunk out.) I need something hard like the screwdriver but that I can use around a corner.
Also, what happens if the stuff I get off just falls into the pipe? Could I potentially be making things worse?
Any ideas? (The pipe is probably iron is that makes any difference at all.)