AuburnChick's Adventures

Man, oh man, what a week this has been.

Returning to the classroom has been an adjustment.  Getting up early and staying gone all day has left little time for the stuff I was doing this summer while unemployed.

I’m feeling overwhelmed.

This didn’t make it any better…

Yeah, it’s my kitchen sink, and it got clogged yesterday after dinner.  Not only was the sink clogged, but it was Chicky’s turn to wash the dishes, and she has a tournament this weekend and will be out of town (no, I’m not having mercy on her and doing them either).

I tried, in vain, to use the plunger to dislodge whatever was stuck.  I even stood on a ladder to give myself better leverage.

Nothing.

I went to bed with it looking like that, hoping that it would drain overnight.

It didn’t.

When I got up this morning, the water was still there, and it had turned darker and smelled a little.

I didn’t have time to deal with it before work, so I left the Mr. in charge of the plunger.

His efforts were in vain.  The water stayed put.

After school, I went straight to the grocery store (more on that in my next post).

When I got home, Chicky told me she had tried to plunge the clog through.

No cigar.

By now, the stink in the house was intense.  It smelled like raw sewage.

While I was at the grocery store, I had picked up a bottle of drainer cleaner (not Drano).  It was some sort of sulfuric acid combo.  I followed the instructions, pouring half of the bottle’s contents down the hole I couldn’t see.  Then, I tried to cover the drain, as instructed…

After 15 minutes, I ran cold water, setting the timer for three minutes (again, following the instructions).  After 90 seconds, I had to turn off the water…

The sink was full of water.  Obviously, the acid didn’t work.

Sigh…

You know what this meant, right?

I had to put on my plumber pants.

I tried to get the Mr. to fix this, but he gave me a big shiver and declared himself incapable of dealing with the stink.

Lovely.

I removed everything from the cabinet and took a picture of the pipe arrangement…just in case…

And then it was time for the dirty work.

I tried to unscrew the pipes, but they wouldn’t budge.

Guess what folks?

If you pull hard enough, the pipes come apart anyway.

Here’s what I saw when the first joint came off…

Yeah…spaghetti noodles.  Last night, I had googled “clogs,” and I read that putting in too much starchy food can lead to the exact problem I was googling.

These are staples in my house.  It was inevitable that this would happen.

I continued to pull pipes apart, at one point getting sprayed with noodles…

The smell was getting worse.

But things were about to get even ickier.

I don’t know why what happened next surprised me so much.  I wasn’t prepared, but after one hard tug, water started pouring out, quickly filling my large bucket…

I screamed for help, but it was slow in coming.

I grabbed a couple of large pots, but they quickly filled up with the nasty, brown water.

Oh man…I cannot even begin to tell you how horrendous this was.

It was probably the worst fix-it-yourself job I’ve ever done.  It was certainly the nastiest.

To their credit, the Mr. and Chicky did get me old towels to clean up with.

As I was cleaning, I felt my legs and arms start to burn.

The sulfuric acid that was in the drain cleaner had splashed on me.  It was still in the water that had just come out of my pipes.

I was more concerned about my floors getting ruined, so I cleaned them up first.  Then, I cleaned the rest of the cabinet and the sink.

I finally got around to showering.

So, what did I learn?

First, I will not put noodles down my drain any more.

Second, I will not buy drain cleaner any more.  What a waste of money.

Third, I can do whatever I set my mind to do.  Ever the penny-pincher (except where yarn is concerned), I managed to save between $100 and $200 by not calling a plumber.

I told the Mr. that he owed me, and he can pay up in yarn.

He responded that I bought yarn last weekend.

Oh yeah.  Rats.  He reads my blog and now knows as much as you guys do.

Oh well.  We’ll consider ourselves even.

For now.

Filed under: This-n-That | Tagged: clogs, home repair | 3 Comments »