Blocked sink and shower unblocking

The sink is full of grey water, or the shower tray fills faster than it empties. The plunger has done nothing. Drainage Emergency clears the whole run, from the trap under the sink to the gully outside, across Derby and Derbyshire, 24/7. A blocked sink or shower that beats a plunger usually has grease, soap or hair packed further along the pipe.

That blockage sits in the waste pipe, the external stack or the outside gully. This page covers where the blockage usually sits and what we do about it. It also explains when you need a drainage engineer rather than a plumber.

Sink still blocked after you have tried everything

You have plunged it, poured boiling water down it, and tried bicarbonate of soda and vinegar. Maybe you have even had the trap off. The water still sits there.

That is the point at which a sink stops being a plumbing niggle and becomes a drainage job. Everything you have tried works on the first half-metre of pipe, and the blockage is further along than that.

One customer wrote that the blockage in their kitchen waste was over six metres into the pipe. Another had already had a plumber out who could not shift it and was quoting to cut the pipework out. Both were cleared without either.

Why kitchen sinks, basins and showers block

Each fixture blocks for its own reason.

Kitchen sinks block on fat. Cooking oil, roasting-tin grease and washing-up water full of it go down warm and cool in the pipe. Food scraps and coffee grounds then stick to the layers of fat on the pipe wall.

Basins block on soap and toothpaste, which bind hair and whiskers into a felt at the waste. Showers and baths block on hair almost exclusively. It winds round the waste grid and the trap below it, with soap scum holding it together.

Wipes are the fourth cause, and the worst, because they do not break down. Flushed, or dropped into a shower tray, they collect at the first bend and catch everything else. In newer homes with plastic waste pipe, the walls are smooth, so the blockage is nearly always fat or wipes. In older houses, a rough cast-iron stack gives grease something to grip.

Where the blockage actually sits

A blocked sink has four places to block, and the fix is different for each. First is the trap, the U or bottle shape directly under the plughole. It holds water that keeps smells out, and catches rings, food and hair. Second is the waste pipe from the trap to the outside wall, 32 or 40 millimetres across. It has bends that hold grease.

Third is the stack, the vertical pipe on the outside wall that several wastes drop into. In a block of flats the stack is shared. A blockage in it shows up in the lowest flat first. Fourth is the outside gully where the stack discharges. That is a drain problem rather than a sink problem, and our blocked outside drain page covers it.

A plunger reaches the first. The engineer’s first job is to find which of the four you have.

How we clear a blocked sink or shower

The engineer works from the sink outwards. The trap comes off and is cleaned. Flexible rods go along the waste pipe to break up and draw back whatever is sitting in it.

If the pipe runs clear but water still will not drop, the problem is downstream. The engineer then moves outside to rod or jet the stack and the gully. High-pressure jetting is what shifts set fat.

It cuts the deposit off the pipe wall and flushes it down to the sewer. Poking a hole through it, by contrast, closes again within a month. Full details are on our drain jetting page.

Before leaving, the sink is filled and emptied a couple of times. The engineer watches it run at the gully. Slow again straight away means the job is not finished. Trap refitted, pipework reconnected, area wiped down. Ring 01332 215521 if that is the job you need doing today.

Chemical unblockers: why we ask you to stop

Stop pouring unblocker down it before we arrive. Caustic soda and the branded gels work on a thin film of grease near the plughole. On a proper blockage they sit on top of it and turn the standing water into something that burns skin.

The engineer then has to take the trap off into that. They can also soften older plastic waste fittings and attack the rubber seals. One customer’s review describes a kitchen drain that had just been dosed with chemicals by another plumber before we were called.

If you have already used one, tell us when you ring. Then the engineer arrives with gloves and eye protection on, and bails it out first. Bleach, for the record, does nothing to hair or fat. It sits in the trap.

Blocked sinks in Derby homes and flats

The calls follow the housing. Oakwood’s 1980s and 1990s estates (DE21) were built with uPVC drainage, so collapses are rare. A blocked sink there is nearly always fat or wipes in the waste. Rods or a short jet will shift it.

Inter-war semis line the Uttoxeter Road corridor by the Royal Derby Hospital (DE22), between Littleover and Mickleover. They sit on original clay drains. A sink that keeps blocking there is often a gully or run problem showing up indoors.

In the city centre (DE1), flats above shops and pubs share stacks and combined Victorian drains. One customer described a blocked sink in a top-floor flat, cleared once a price range was agreed on the phone. Our office is on Mansfield Road (DE21), a few minutes from Chaddesden Park. Chaddesden, Oakwood and Spondon get the fastest attendance as a result.

Plumber or drainage engineer

A plumber fits and repairs the pipework you can see. A drainage engineer clears what is in it. We carry the rods, the jetting unit and the closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera to reach the stack and the gully. That is usually where a sink that has beaten the plunger is blocked.

If the trap is broken or a tap needs replacing, call a plumber. If the water will not go down, call us on 01332 215521. The phone is answered 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and you will be asked three things.

Which sink or shower it is, whether any other fixture is slow, and whether you have used a chemical cleaner. Quotes have no hidden fees. Work quoted below two thousand pounds is paid only on completion, and we carry £5 million public liability cover.

Customers regularly report us arriving within the hour. Bath and shower wastes are cleared the same way. A blocked toilet, or a main run that has stopped altogether, is covered under emergency drain unblocking.

Ring with the sink still full; that is all you need to do. The engineer clears the waste, the stack and the gully, then runs the sink to prove it. The cupboard underneath is left as tidy as it was found.