Unfortunately our time had come to look into the gutters. Our kitchen sink hadn’t been emptying properly for some time and none of the drain cleaning products had worked. So we called a plumber. Unfortunately the first thing he saw was that our drain covers were cemented into place and so he told us that the problem was probably grease and detergent waste blocking the pipes and then he left. Fortunately, the water from the sink goes into the “pure water drain” and so cleaning it was a less daunting prospect.
So we set to work unsealing the drain cover and after two hours work we succeeded. We discovered the plumber was correct. All round the pipes was layers of congealed dishwashing powder, soap etc. We took out 14 litres (3 gallons) of gunge and finally as we flushed the tubes a great sausage of gunge came slipping out. Problem solved, we thought.
The next day the water was again draining away very slowly. So with a “snake” i.e. a long length of thin spring used to unbloke drains we set to work and managed to make the problem worse. Obviously other crude in the pipe and got together and my prodding and poking had simply impacted it.
So we went down to the local Do it yourself shop in search of some inspiration and Bill saw an drain cleaning attachment for our high pressure hose. 65 euros poorer we returned home and set to work. After an hour of pushing and prodding the new attachment seemed to get through the crud and the water drained away. The following day we were back giving the tubes a final blast of water but in fact the problem seemed to be as bad as ever as the cleaning tube hit another piece of hard crud. Another hour of work and we got through to be met by another couple of blockages. Finally after another hour of work water flowed through with a vengence and hopefully problem is resolved.