Plumbing gone wrong fixed. PLUS a problem with stains from acid.

dlads

Hi all,

This is my first post, me and my girlfriend tiled our kitchen floor which looks great might i add.

When it came to grouting we found that there was a lot of excess mortar and low and behold after a day our sink was blocked due to excessive rinsing of the sponge from the grouting.

We literally tried everything to unblock our drains, starting with caustic soda, then mr muscle drain unblocker and then after all that had failed and i went to buy a plunger from our local franchi store, the guy offered me some one shot, which is basically 90% Sulphoric Acid and is not to be handled by an idiot.

The caustic soda costs £3.99p and the Sulphoric acid cost £4.99p, (not sure on the mr muscle.

After trying all these things and then finally the drain snake bought from B&Q for £4.99 the drain is finally unblocked and we are able to use the sink, but what i have now is black marks on our newly fitted sink caused by the extremely toxic and damaging cheaply and unbelievably easily to acquire ACID.

Does anyone know of a way to restore the sink to it's original state?!??

It's quite annoying to see black stains on a brand new sink in a brand newly fitted kitchen, i'm aware that i have mixed an alkali with an acid, both of which are highly toxic and believe me i've learnt my lesson.

Any ideas would be great.

Thanks,

Paul.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

I did the same to mine a few years back & soaked it in straight bleach for a few hours. & repeated about 3 or 4 times until it eventually went..

I take it you have a steel sink...

1984ReturnsForReal_2

By the way you are supposed to empty out all the water before you use that stuff & pour it straight down the hole..

andrew-b

What sort of sink is it ? Metal/ceramic/composite?
First thing i'd try is to fill up the sink with hot water and add some biological washing powder and leave overnight to see if that removes the stains.
I'd then try contacting the sink manufacturer who may be better placed to advise.
Failing that with metal you may be able to gently rub out with sandpaper/metal scourer (circular motion will likely be less noticeable); for white ceramic metal scourer and bleach; for composite could try barkeeper's friend and a scourer suitable for non-stick pans.

For future reference clean your tiling tools (and plastering tools, bricklaying tools etc) in a bucket of warm water, pour/rinse out onto an area of soil in the garden rather than down the drain. Contaminated soil can be removed later when dry if necessary as the cement will remain at the surface.