bathroom sink clogged after snaking with black sludge

[patrick88]

Since I am not a fan of harsh lye based cleaners, I think I will look for a more environmentally and wallet friendly solution to maintain my drains. Perhaps the baking soda and vinegar solution might suit me best. Anyone have success with this for maintaining clean and free-flowing drains?

Good you should not use the acid openers.
I have been told from many customers that the baking soda and vinegar trick works great, but then again I'm a drain cleaner so I'm drain cleaning the drains they use it on. I would keep a cheap snake on hand and shoot it down your drains every 6months or so.
The real problem you have is your bath sink drain is copper and your main stack is cast iron. these two metals will rot each other. The 1 1/2" drain is most likely down to less than 1" . Nothing eats this not even the acid openers. Yes the snake is a real pain but it is the only thing that will keep your drains working fast, aside from replacing the copper to plastic.

[bozomedic]

I tried the snake bit. Didn't seem to work. I first used a hand turned 1/4" 25 foot snake then a drill powered one(broke the hand one). Still didn't drain. Like I mentioned earlier, the more I plunged and snaked, the more black sludge came up. I didn't know if it would end?

Well, I will still run a snake down every six months. Does it really work to unclog a problem like I had? Maybe it is my technique. I need a good tutorial on how to properly snake a drain.

I had the local rooto roter guy come out and snake the basement traps and did such a crappy job I had to go behind him (after shelling out $200.00). Actually I plunged the one trap and it worked great after that.

Anyway, thanks for your reply. And yes, Linux beats Wondoze hands down any day. Just installed Ubuntu Feisty 2 months ago and gave my 9 year old desktop a new lease on life. Works better than any Gill Bates product out there!

[bozomedic]

But of course this isn't a Linux for noobs forum now is it