Sink drains slow

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suthern kumfert

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hello to everyone,

I have an older home and my sink will not drain unless you let it sit for a long time. when you walk into the bathroom you have the sink to the right, a toilet next to the sink and then a tub next to the toilet. i looked under the house and all 3 pipes run together and go to the street to drain. I have pulled the pop up out and cleaned that, i took the p trap out and cleaned that i snaked the drain pipe with a 25 foot snake and there was nothing blocking it. what could be wrong? could this be a vent problem? if so how can i fix it? i would think if it was a vent problem then i would be having problems with the toilet and the tub but they drain fine. any help and i would so thankful.

thanks
 

MTcummins

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Post some pictures please, of the piping under your sink as well as whatever lines you were able to see underneath, where you said they join together and go to the street. This will help us in trying to determine your problem.
 

suthern kumfert

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here is under the sink. i am not able to get a pic of under the house but i will try to get one. 2011-11-20_14-04-34_740.jpg
 

MTcummins

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Nothing looks obviously wrong under the sink. Is there a vent line coming off the top of the Tee where the drain line enters the wall? I can't see that from this picture.

Technically, a clogged or missing vent shouldn't slow down or cause a clog in the drain. Its primary function is to ensure that water remains in the trap and sewer gasses don't escape into your house. There is a small effect of helping water move more quickly as the drain can cause a suction force and the vent allows air to freely move through, but this is relatively minor. The lack of a vent won't cause a clog, but could make an existing problem get worse than it otherwise would.

You probably have a problem under the house, but w/o seeing it, its hard to say.
 

suthern kumfert

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Nothing looks obviously wrong under the sink. Is there a vent line coming off the top of the Tee where the drain line enters the wall? I can't see that from this picture.

Technically, a clogged or missing vent shouldn't slow down or cause a clog in the drain. Its primary function is to ensure that water remains in the trap and sewer gasses don't escape into your house. There is a small effect of helping water move more quickly as the drain can cause a suction force and the vent allows air to freely move through, but this is relatively minor. The lack of a vent won't cause a clog, but could make an existing problem get worse than it otherwise would.

You probably have a problem under the house, but w/o seeing it, its hard to say.

no there is not a pipe going up into the wall...it just goes down when it goes into the wall...
 

Cacher_Chick

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Your first picture shows a cleanout at the end of the line labeled "sink". Snake the line through that cleanout. It may help to run water down it at the same time to flush it out.

We cannot see all the bends, but using that cleanout it should be pretty easy to determine if the restriction is above or below that point.
 

suthern kumfert

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ok i will do that next...and as far as the bends what you see is all i can see...the pipes come out oc the floor and come straight down and then you see then from there.
 

Cacher_Chick

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Also worth mentioning is that if you are pushing a 1/2" diameter snake down a 2 or 3" pipe, you won't be accomplishing much. The line should be scoured with a mechanical power snake with an appropriately sized head.
 

suthern kumfert

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i was thinking that too so i went and got a bigger snake. the pipe under the sink is like 1.5 inch pipe and the head of the snake was almost the same size. I have a drill powered snake that is a little smaller and a bigger hand powered snake. tomorrow i plan on removing the cleanout and running the snake from under the sink and then going down to the cleanout to make sure i see the snake and then taking the snake down to the clean out and cleaning out the pipe from down there. If all is cleaned out where do i turn next? I mean if all is clean to the main drain pipe that is going to the road what do i do next if that dont fix the problem? cause i know the tub and topilet that go into that same drain pipe have no problem. man i hope this works
 

MTcummins

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does the kitchen sink flow easily? If so, then your problem is between the downturn of the pipe under the sink and where the kitchen sink ties in. Most likely it is in the horizontal portion by the cleanout. shine a light down in there and see what it looks like... it may be time to chop out a section there and put in some new piping, that horizontal part is probably corroded all to hell and making the water flow slowly, catching hair, etc.

also, you have no venting whatsoever in this setup that I can see, other than some wet venting from the main stack. if i were you (without going to the huge trouble of putting in a proper vent which would be the right fix), I would cut into that horizontal PVC line under your sink back near the wall and install a Tee with the Tee part pointing up and the curve going towards the wall, go up about 4-6 inches, and install an air admittance valve. a little air flow behind that drain won't hurt, and if nothing else, will prevent sewer gas from entering your bathroom.
 

hj

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IF the sink drain turns downward, then you have an "S" trap, and MANY things, other than a plugged sink drain, can cause the sink to drain slowly, or not at all, and snaking the sink line will NOT help it. IF this is the problem, an "air admittance valve" will be completely useless to help the situation.
 

MTcummins

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IF the sink drain turns downward, then you have an "S" trap, and MANY things, other than a plugged sink drain, can cause the sink to drain slowly, or not at all, and snaking the sink line will NOT help it. IF this is the problem, an "air admittance valve" will be completely useless to help the situation.

would you care to enlighten us what some of those things could be? i thought that S traps were only really a problem b/c the suction force of a fast draining bowl of water or something like that could suck the water out of the trap and cause a sewer gas problem, which an AAV should address. are there other problems associated with S traps?

what other problems would cause a slow drain if everything else on that main line is draining fine?
 

Hardt

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After replacing my lav faucet a few of months ago, it drained slowly. It drained slowly with the old system, too. When removing the old pop-up assembly, there was a lot of hair & crud snagged onto the bottom of the stopper and I figured that this was the cause of the slow drain so I was puzzled that I still had that problem. Well, I lived with it for a couple of months before I decided to fix it! I didn't care that it drained slowly but that because of the resultant pooling, there was hair/shaving cream, etc. stuck to the sides of the basin that I had to clean! What was happening, was that there was only about 3/16" gap between the bottom of stopper and drain flange and it was not large enough to avoid pooling. The rod that raises the stopper was at its max lift limit, so my only alternative (as I saw it) was to glue a 1/8" thick piece of plastic to the stopper assembly at the point that the rod lifts the stopper assy. and this fixed the problem. So now the opening is 5/16" & no matter how wide open the faucet valve is, it will not pool and there is less cleaning!
 

suthern kumfert

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thanks to everyone but i have had to run out of town for a little while so oncei get back home i will pull that clean out and see what i can see...thanks...i will keep yall posted on how it goes
 

suthern kumfert

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ok, i think i am going crazy. I just back into town on thursday and when i woke up friday i flushed to toilet in my bedroom, on the other side of the house than where i have been having a problem with the sink, and it just filled up and then went down real slow. So i told my wife to use the other toilet because this one was not working so she did and that one did the same thing? So i said to her well i guess this weekend i will snake the house and see what the problem was. Well she forgot the sink was having problems and she let the water run for over 30 minutes and it drianed fine with not backing up???? so we went to wor and came home i tested all the sinks and toilets on friday about 5 pm and everything worked fine? I still went under the house this weekend and took off the clean out caps and snaked the pipes and there was not hard spots that i found. So I wonder what could have been the problem the whole time? any ideas? also checked the 2 different vents on the roof and ran a snake down them and everything was clear...please let me know what you think it could of been....i think i am going crazy!!!!
 

Cacher_Chick

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You could have had a blockage that flowed clear. It could have been all the way out at the street. I've seen more than one case where the city sewer got plugged, which can cause a backflow into people's houses.

When I was a kid, my father would go out and look down the manhole covers in the street to see if the problem was in our line or the city line. The sewer line is around 20 feet below grade there, as the entire town was gravity fed sewer and we were only a mile or so from the end.
 

suthern kumfert

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oh ok. well i just flushed the toilet and the kitchen sink gargled...lol...i am lost for words...maybe it is the city having problems. cause i know i snaked all the lines this weekend and everything was clear...hmmm...man this is making me upset... i hate when i think i have something done and then it aint ...
 
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