Horrible plug holes

rosie383

I have tried cleaning the plug holes in the kitchen but struggle to do it effectively. They have those metal sieve jobs in them to stop food going down, but underneath I can see through the holes that it is all gunky and disgusting down there. I have tried:

A cup of soda crystals
Vinegar
Hot water
A straw or skewer with cloth wrapped around it to poke down and try to clean.

The holes are too small to allow a toothbrush and I don't want to go and buy mascara just so that I can have an old wand to use.

I'd love suggestions that actually definitely work please.

Oh, and my soda crystals are in a big lump in the bag. Usually I store them properly, but I must have just chucked the opened bag in the cupboard this time. I have tried my usual trick of chucking it hard onto to the floor, but it isn't breaking! Should I try putting some boiling water on them and see if it'll turn into a paste that I could use?

GreyQueen

Could you access the necessary parts with a pair of long-snouted and very pointed tweezers? I have a cheap and very vicious pair which are kept exclusively for this purpose.

Re the soda crystals solidifying, this happens at my place (very warm and dry) until I started decanting them into 4 pint milk bottles as soon as they came home.

Once they're solid, I've tried various things; hitting them with a wooden rolling pin (dented it) and many other silly and ineffectual things. I eventually resorted into carving chunks off with a serrated veg prep knife, putting the chunk over the plughole and pouring boiling water on that.

Are you able to undo the trap (u-bend) under the sink and get at the nasty area that way? Have a bowl ready to catch the slops, it's a manky job. HTH.

rosie383

Thanks Grey Queen. That's a great suggestion about putting the soda crystals in a milk container. Will be doing that next time.

I won't be bothering with the U-bend trap. The sink is only a few years old and TBH it's only the immediate upper bit that is bothering me.

I don't have any long tweezers, but having been a nurse for many years, I know exactly what you mean. I will definitely look out for something like that once the car boots start up again.

comeandgo

Lakeland may still sell small brushes to use in tight places, have you poured bleach down the sink?

MissMoriarty

I always find caustic soda amazing for sinks and plugholes.

Or a bottle of 'buster' - comes in a black bottle with an orange lid.

:j

GreyQueen

The tweezers I have came from a boot fair, funnily enough, they're new but cheapies, but plenty good enough for this purpose.

Re caustic soda, I would urge you to use it carefully. At my parents' place, the bath waste and the hand basin waste share a drainage pipe. The bath had been running slowly for some time and eventually blocked.

They put caustic soda down it, which sat in the plastic pipe long enough to corrode its way through it. And then started dripping through the kitchen ceiling downstairs. That little episode caused the pipework to have to be professionally replaced (part of the bathroom floor had to come up to access it) and the ceiling downstairs to be re-decorated. Oh, and the caustic-y water backed up into the tub and ate away at the surface of the enamelled steel tub, leaving it roughened and matte.

Sooo, please treat caustic soda with extreme caution, that little episode caused a fair bit of expense and inconvience to my parental units.

rosie383

Wow thanks for the warning! It would have to be a whole lot worse than it is to consider using caustic soda. I was thinking more along the lines of a skinny thing to poke down and scrub with.

GreyQueen

rosie383 wrote: »

Wow thanks for the warning! It would have to be a whole lot worse than it is to consider using caustic soda. I was thinking more along the lines of a skinny thing to poke down and scrub with.

I have a small diameter bottle brush reserved for just this purpose. Or I will have; it's presently AWOL somewhere in my kitchen.........:p

gayleygoo

Cheap shops such as Poundland often sell "dental kits", that include a something that looks like it is meant for scraping stuff out from between your teeth. Perfect for scraping out the plughole! (maybe don't use the same one for your teeth as well though). It's a yucky job, getting all that black sludge out, but oddly satisfying, like squeezing a bit spot Then I use toilet roll to wipe the gunk out of the sink.

Once I've got most f the solid stuff out, I use washing soda crystals and hot water to give the plughole a good clean. I have occasionally used caustic soda, but it does need to be treated with caution and can make matters worse if there is a big blockage that would need removed first.

rosie383

Good idea. I think I will have a nosey in pounders the next time I'm in town to see if they have a skinny bottle or toothbrush thingy. I do have a bottle brush, but I use that for the animals' water bottles.

Spendless

I don't know what they're called but I bought something from The Range a few years ago. They are on flexible bendy wire and have a small velcro type pad at the top. You push them down the plug holes and any debris sticks to the pads. I've never needed to use them in the kitchen, but have used them often in the bathroom, where hair frequently clogs up the plug hole.