My kitchen sink had been backing when I ran the disposal for months. This happened before so I knew what to do. I spent an afternoon disassembling the drain pipes under the sink. Then I cleaned out the grease and muck that had coagulated inside them.
It helped a lot. But I was still having some backup issues whenever I poured a big batch of water down the drain.
That was puzzling.
So, I did some googling and thinking. Maybe I had a clog further down the drain. So one afternoon, I disconnected the pipes again and snaked out the drain. I didn’t feel any clogs but figured whatever I did was probably helpful.
Well, apparently not.
So for the next few weeks, I poured water slowly and emptied the sink gradually when using the disposal to avoid a nasty backup. After a few annoying weeks of doing this, I thought “I must have missed cleaning out one of the connections under the sink”.
After all, plumbing is simple. Water follows gravity. If it is not draining, there a clog somewhere.
So today I took apart all of the pipes (for the 3rd time). They were all clean and clog free. I hadn’t missed any of them.
I pondered this.
Why would my disposal being backing up – only when I poured a lot of water into it? If my main drain was clogged I should be seeing backups in my other sinks, my shower and maybe my toilets. Fortunately, it was only the kitchen sink.
Still, water follows gravity. There are only so many pipes under the sink and I had cleared them all.
Then it occurred to me that maybe my disposal unit was clogged somehow. I inspected it with a flashlight. I stuck my hand in there feeling to see if anything seemed amiss. Nada.
Still, something wasn’t working. So I look more closely at all the connections and from the disposal. There was one small hose, located much too high for where I would think a drain would be positioned. I was able to poke around from inside the disposal and get my finger in it. It felt a bit greasy. I jammed a pipe cleaner in there and pushed it around for a while.
Then I poured a bunch of water into the sink and it drained perfectly fine.
Argghhhhhhh!
Another solution that was so obvious it was hitting me right in the face. I just couldn’t see it.
The disposal isn’t draining water. I might be a good idea to check the disposal drain first.
Maybe one day I’ll get it right the first time.