Kitchen Drain Cleaning for Newmarket Homes

Service

Kitchen Drain Cleaning

Category

Drains and sewers

Where

Newmarket and nearby York Region

Booking

By telephone

Clues that point to kitchen drain cleaning

• The second basin fills with grey water as the first one empties.
• The dishwasher leaves a puddle in the bottom of the tub at the end of a cycle.
• A faint rancid smell comes from the sink even after you have cleaned it.
• The disposer hums and empties slowly.
• The trap has been taken apart and cleaned, and nothing changed.

Our method, in order

We start under the sink. The P-trap comes off into a bucket so we can see the first section of pipe with our own eyes. If the trap is clear, the blockage sits in the wall or below the floor, usually where the kitchen branch meets the main stack.

From there we run a cable sized for a kitchen line, normally one and a half inches, fitted with a head that scrapes the pipe wall rather than only poking a hole through the fat. A narrow hole closes again within weeks. Scraping the wall is what buys you months.

For long runs that have clogged repeatedly, we may recommend hydro jetting, which washes the full circumference of the pipe clean. We put the trap back with fresh washers, run hot water and a full dishwasher drain, and check for drips before we pack up.

Newmarket houses and this job

Island kitchens are the big one. Many Newmarket renovations moved the sink to an island, which means the drain runs horizontally under the floor for some distance before it finds a stack. Horizontal pipe collects fat faster than vertical pipe. Some islands were also vented with a loop or an air admittance valve that has since failed, which makes the sink gurgle and drain sluggishly even when the pipe itself is clear.

In older homes in the centre of town, the kitchen drain may still be galvanized steel inside the wall. That pipe rusts inward and narrows, and no amount of cleaning restores its full width. If we see heavy scale on the cable, we will tell you, and replacing the short section is often sensible.

Things that should not go down the sink

• Bacon fat and roasting drippings
• Spent coffee grounds
• Rice and pasta, which keep swelling
• Eggshell fragments
• Fibrous peelings such as celery and onion skin

When it is worth calling

Call us when water rises in the other basin, when the dishwasher cannot drain, or when you have cleaned the trap and it is still slow. Our circular on grease and kitchen drains has more on prevention.