A dirty job ... cleared!

And then all of a sudden there is the moment that every housewife has to face, the moment your kitchen drain no longer runs away properly. The moment you think, what is this now? And that you really have to find that you have a clogged drain.

Of course there are chemical liquids available for this kind of things in stores, but sometimes ... you have to conclude that this doesn't do the job either.

I had that moment this week. The well-known rubber suction cup did not do his job ... at least, it seemed to work for a while. But not enough. The blockage did not come loose. The water was still not running well, no matter how hard I tried, the water just won't flow down the drain.

Boiling water with soda did not do the trick either. So on to the store, liquid unblocker and that in the evening poured into the drain before bedtime. The next morning full of hope the tap turned open, but alas! The water was still running very slowly, and the drain bubbled ... so no improvement was noticeable. Then what to do now?

Internet gave me the wisdom that I could unscrew the siphon to clean it properly, but a look under my sink in the sink cupboard gave me the wisdom that this would not work here! We already knew that we live in an old house. That the maintenance here has left a lot to be desired and still ... we knew that too. But that the drain was made by people who obviously had no idea what they were doing, we now found out, now that there were problems we found that we could not solve them so easily. The siphon, which normally needs to be neatly disassembled, is glued here on the pipe that runs directly to the outside wall.

The normal next step is to hire a company, a specialist 'unblocking company', or a plumber. And although our small country is rich in companies and people like that, our bank account does not allow us to hire those people for this job. We do not just have 100 euros for a company ... and then you also have to hope that it is solved within an hour, which we both feared that would not work because of the way in which the drain is made.

A so-called unblocking spring we own ourselves ... so tried to turn it into the drain. But just take a look at all the bends made here. That is almost impossible.

After I had drawn that conclusion, the dogs came to check, they also wanted to see if they could help me ... but unfortunately they did not know a solution.

Another internet tip gave hope. A vacuum cleaner! The most famous household appliance of a typical housewife! And certainly a housewife with dogs knows how to use a vacuum cleaner!

So after gathering enough courage, I started this 'nice job' yesterday morning.

I have sealed all the air supplies well and then I unscrewed the cap at the bottom of the gooseneck. First tried to still turn the spring through all impossible corners but that did not go far enough. So then I chose to take the vacuum cleaner ... HAPPY we have a vacuum cleaner that can also suck water, an all-purpose vacuum cleaner, and a powerful one too!

Check again if all the air supplies were closed so that if I sucked this is really in the drain and no false air is sucked from above. But that was all right, so on hopes of blessing, press the button ... and wait. Hold the tube well and hope for success.

Within a few seconds I heard and felt everything coming loose in the drain and I felt it coming into the vacuum cleaner hose. That was positive and gave me good hope. I let the vacuum cleaner do its work until I did not feel anything anymore and then I filled the kettle, boiled water and poured through the drain. And to my surprise that suddenly seemed a lot better. But I also know that there was no more water in the drain and that I was not sure if I really had solved the blockage.

I repeated the procedure with the kettle a few times to be more sure that the water could run away again. At first I did not hear a bubbling sound anymore and I was really happy. Unfortunately, boiling water was poured away after the seventh time, yet another bubbling noise ... that was a bit disappointing.

I have sealed everything again and turned the cap open again, put the vacuum cleaner in the bottom again and let it suck again. And again I heard it coming loose and I felt that everything went into the hose.

Again my boiling water procedure repeated. And the final result is that I can say that I have happily opened the drain again.

The water flows better than ever before as far as we know. The dishwasher runs normally again and we do not have a bubbling sound anymore after the water runs down the drain. So it really seems that I have solved this 'dirty job' this time. The only problem I have now ... is that I have to clean my vacuum cleaner from all the greasy grime that has gotten into it. So you know what I can do today ... Just now that the drain is open again, it will have to be used properly, to drain the water for cleaning my vacuum cleaner.