Overview

If your kitchen sink or laundry trough are slow to drain or is making a gurgling sound, chances are you’ve got a blockage somewhere.

Likely causes of your sink problems:

• Fats, Oils & Grease: Pouring these things down the sink is innocent enough at the time but once they cool as they hit the water seal in your trap under the sink they begin to turn to a solid state, sticking to walls of the pipe and reducing its diameter.
• Soap Scum- This is the white residue that can build up on other objects like food scraps or hair and other particles in the piping. It builds up over time attracting mold and mildew and potentially bacteria growth. This build up also reduces water flow through the shrinking of the pipe diameter.
• Food Scraps- The build up of food scraps in the trap below the sink. This and soap scum combined to make a smelling sludge that can be easily avoided.
• Galvanised Piping- You will find this steel pipe in older buildings from the 50’s to 70’s. This piping was tough and durable but over time the minerals in the water corrodes away the inside effectively closing the pipe in on itself.
• Foreign Objects- All sorts of weird and wonderful things are either dropped or unintentionally put in drain pipes by young kids. It doesn’t have to be big for some other form of material to get caught and build up to the point of blocking.
• Tree roots- Tree roots often find their way into pipe breakages very easily, the constant moisture helps them thrive and grow very quickly resulting in your blockage.
• Broken pipes- This can happen due to construction of a new house (if the house is not very old chances are the blockage is due to damaged pipe during construction.)
• Overflows- Often the kitchen sink or laundry trough is connected to an overflow relief gully outside, this is a dome with a grate that sticks up above paving or ground level. If that is overflowing it means your blockage is down stream of it, in the main sewer line of your property.