slow bath sink drain question

19 years ago

So I have a simple bathroom sink that has been draining slowly for years. It will get worse and plunging and/or some faoming pipe snake usually ease the symptoms some. I dont recall it being as bad as it is when I bought the house but its hard to tell since the bathroom sink is mostly used for brushing of teeth only and quick washing of hands. Toilet and shower seem to drain well as does kitchen sink. Anyway I took things apart again today just to make sure nothing is causing a problem. I have always wondered if the dang thing just isnt installed right/well. So I took some pics. Can anyone answer some questions. First the pics:

Sink from above

http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~denis/images/sink_above.jpg

Close up of drain

http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~denis/images/sink_drain.jpg

The trap removed

http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~denis/images/sink_p_trap.jpg

The tail removed

http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~denis/images/sink_tail.jpg

Sink under with trap and tail removed

http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~denis/images/sink_under.jpg

details:

the pipe coming out of the wall is 1.5'' pvc.

uses a compression fitting to connect to the chrome tail/trap, which is 1'' diameter.

this connects to the grey pvc drain unit which is 1.25'' i think.

questions:

o do i have what people call a "vessel sink" I realize it doesnt have an overflow.

o if it is a vessel sink could my problem be related to the discussion here:

http://www.askmehelpdesk.com/plumbing/new-vessel-sink-without-overflow-drains-slow-39837.html

o if that MIGHT be the issue is there a easy way to test? Stupid drains cost $30 and up and I'd rather not guess.

The p-trap and tail always look reasonably clean when i look at them and I've tried pushing a snake through but the pipe in the wall twists in a way that make it diffcult. If I have the water on all the wat for 5 seconds and its draining ok it takes about 11 seconds to empty what collected in the bowl. Is that reasonable? I dont even know. My expectation is that at medium to full the sink should drain at mostly the same rate as the incoming water much like kitchen or tub as well as sinks where i work. anyway any suggestions/discussion/ideas would be appreciated. I dont know why I have pvc to chrome to pvc inside a cabinet. It makes me think various repairs/upgrades happened and maybe one or more were not correct.

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Comments (2)

jason1083
19 years ago
all of the piping appears correct (it is pretty close to impossible to screw up a trap
the drainage does seem slow based on what you have said
My best guess is somewhere back in (probably the bend where you cant get the snake past) is where there is buildup.
I have the same problem with my bathroom sink I dont even bother with drain cleaners, just use a plunger on it.
denis_h
Original Author
19 years ago
just wanted to follow up. I tried plunging again for quite a while to little improvement. I tried foaming pipe snake per my usual course along with good flush and more plunging. No noticable improvement. Anyway I went out to Lowes and Home Depot to check out what type of snakes etc they had. I had once attempted to snake it with a borrowed attach to your drill snake. Between it being a dumb snake design and me not being able to get it further than a foot into the tail of the drain I pretty much figured snaking wasnt possible and I hate wasting money.

However after years of plunging every few weeks to restore minimal flow I was ready to take a $13 risk and I got a snake from home depot. See my theory was that with sufficient water flow and plunging I could clear most stuff. Well I was wrong. The new snake was a better design for the sink , one of the $13 steel housing hand crank models. Got it into the tail .. still had problems getting around a bend about a foot in but was able to get into the pipe this time hit what I thought was more bends thought I got snake caught at one point. However I ended up with a snake with coating of black gunk along with some very hard pieces thatended up caught in the small coil head. It looked like carbon or graphite almost. After a number of times running the snake back through (all 25' of it) and not pulling anythhing out really. I put everything back together and the sink drains like a champ now. Turn the water on full and it all goes down, no back up. WOW. I'm so glad somthing finally worked. I have no idea what exactly has been building up but I think I've at least puched a significant hole in it, or I punched a hole in my pipe.

So perhaps someone can learn from my mistake. Get a snake. Use it. It will probably fix your problem.
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