Water takes forever to go down the drain, and weve tried draino and vinegar and baking soda, which neither worked. We cant snake because the damn stopper doesnt come out. What else can we do?
both sinks and the tub get drain problems. The simplest way is to get a piece of wire about 4 inches long and put a short curl at the end and then attach a piece of strong string to a curl at the other end and hook that string to that tight curl with a couple of knots. So you're ready then to pull up anything that's clogging the pipe near the surface (and yes you can do it around the stopper) and you should do this monthly (in all 3 places). From my experience Draino only plugs it more, but Liquid Plumber does work for me. When I go to sleep I'd pour a full bottle down there and then close the stopper and then in the morning I'd heat a pot of water on the stove and pour it into the drain and again close the stopper for a couple of hours and that has always cleared the drain in the past for me, however using it too often you can ruin the pipes so using the hooked wire is your better bet.
If you can take the trap off the sink then you will be able to unclog it. You need to remove the piece of the stopper and replace that part. That is what is catching hair build-up. It will amaze you what the trap looks like inside. Jo Ann
Go underneath the sink and remove the P trap. It is the S shaped pipe directly under the sink that blocks sewer gasses from flowing back up the pipe and into the house. Chances are it is clogged and you can clean it out after removal. If that is not the case and the P trap is clear, your system is now open to be snaked, bypassing that problematic stopper. Even if you have a removable stopper, there is usually a grate that prevents a snake from being deployed in that position anyway. Plumbers never snake that way because it is very difficult to get the snake through the P trap.
The above (pull the trap) answers are valid. In addition, the non-removable stopper is removable. Under the sink on the back of the top section of drain is a horizontal rod, which raises and lowers the stopper. Remove the clip that attached the pull rod behind the faucet to it, then remove the nut or clip holding the rod into the drain pipe. Then the stopper will lift out and a drain snake can be run from the top.
The damn stopper DOES come out. Get under the sink and find where the drain pipe comes down. Shortly below the bottom of the sink, there will be a nut that goes around a shaft. The shaft reaches back to a rod which goes straight up through the back of the sink. That's the stopper control. Undo how the rod attaches to the shaft. Undo the nut holding the shaft in the pipe. Remove the shaft. Now you can undo the big nuts holding the drain pipe together, remove the P trap at the bottom of the pipe and get all that gunk out of there. NOTE: have a big bowl or something under where you're working, there's likely to be some water spillage as a result of this. ALSO: you're going to want some latex gloves on for this. It can get pretty nasty in that pipe. DON'T FORGET: you'll be able to see what you're doing in the P trap but also reach as high up inside the straight pipe both going into the sink and into the wall and fish out every bit that you can. I do this a couple times a year on my sink. Takes fifteen minutes if everything goes wrong. It's easy.
