Isn’t it great when you’re in the shower, and suddenly you realize your shower has become a bath? Or when you are standing at the sink brushing your teeth, and you notice your sink is filling up quickly with water? Of course, you do the first initial checks – Is the drain open? Even if you are 100 percent sure the drain is open you still check it. Why? Because that will be an easy fix. Then it becomes – please let it just be that the drain is closed. But alas, this time, that is not what’s meant to be. You have a clog! Now you need to run through your mind to determine what options you have to clear the drain.
You mentally look through your cupboards to remember if you have drain cleaner, you look over the fridge to remember if you had a magnet advertising a plumber, and then you try to determine if flushing the drain out with hot water will work. So you begin trying to clear the drain with the options that are least to most hassle. You try the hot water, and nothing happens. After physically searching the cupboards you realize you have no drain cleaner, and your refrigerator has about 100 pizza company magnets, but no plumber. Then you realize you have a snake.
One thing to realize when considering snaking your drain is that everything that is clogging your drain will not look the same outside of the drain as at the end of your snake. What do I mean by this? Sometimes when snaking a drain, it is a good idea not have a big meal beforehand. While the hair on your head might look dashing or beautiful, at the end of a snake, it looks mostly like sludge. Just about everything that clogs the drain (minus a Barbie head or G.I. Joe shoes) will look gray and sludgy in the drain. Let’s not even discuss if there is a smell…..remember the meal comment?
So you can begin snaking the drain and seeing how that goes. Just remember you might not like (seeing or smelling) what comes out. Additionally, it is important to remember the type of pipes that you have. Snaking a drain can cause scratches to certain materials. It is hard to determine what the end of the snake is hitting or rubbing against as it goes down the pipe towards the clog. Depending upon the type of snake you have, it could also be a good workout trying to snag the clog with a manual snake.
When all is said and done, you might realize that it would have been easier to just find a plumber to handle it for you. There’s no mess for you to clean up, no horrid smell, or frightening sights to see.
So, why not let us handle your drain clearing for you? We can be reached at (440) 884-4600. You can put this number on a piece of paper and tape it to your fridge, put us on speed dial or use one of the 100 pizza magnets to keep our number handy. You could also send us an email at customerservice@littsplumbing.com.
