A kitchen sink that will not go down
Almost always mantika and hugas bigas, almost always sitting in the trap under the sink, and almost always out in ten minutes with a pail and your hands.
You do not have a garbage disposal, and that is fine
Search this and nearly every result opens by telling you to check the garbage disposal. A waste disposal unit is standard under an American sink and close to absent from a Filipino kitchen, so page one begins with a dead end for most people who typed it.
Skip it. Your blockage is in the trap under the sink or in the pipe just past it, which is a better place to look regardless.
What is actually in there
Mantika and hugas bigas, working together. Cooking oil goes down warm and liquid, meets a cold pipe and sets on the inside of it. Rice washing water carries starch that swells and binds to that grease. Neither of those happens in a bathroom, which is why the kitchen is the sink that blocks.
It also explains the pattern: a kitchen sink goes slowly over months rather than failing suddenly, and it comes back within weeks if only the surface was cleared.
The five steps
1. Bail the sink out first
Get the standing water out with a mug and a pail rather than waiting for it to go down. Everything below is easier without twenty litres waiting to follow the trap off, and if there is chemical in that water you want it in a pail rather than over your arms.
2. Plunge it properly
A flat cup plunger, not the flanged toilet kind. Block the overflow hole with a wet cloth if the sink has one, and on a double sink block the other drain, or all you do is push water from one bowl to the other. Firm and slow, fifteen or twenty seconds.
3. Open the trap, which is the actual fix
The trap is the U or the bottle-shaped fitting under the sink. Pail underneath, then unscrew the two collars by hand. This is where kitchen blockages live, and what comes out is usually a grey plug of set grease with rice starch through it. Wipe it into the bin, not back down the sink.
4. If the trap was clear, go past it
A blockage beyond the trap means the horizontal run. Feed a hand auger into the pipe the trap connects to and turn it as it goes. If it reaches full length without catching anything, stop: the problem is further along than a household tool reaches.
5. Flush it with hot water and washing-up liquid
Hot from the tap, not boiling, and a good squeeze of dish soap. This is for clearing the film the trap job left behind, not for shifting the blockage itself. Do it monthly and the sink stops blocking.
Before anybody opens that trap
If liquid sosa has already gone down there, say so. Caustic soda sitting in standing water burns on contact, and whoever undoes the trap wears it on their hands and forearms. It does not become safe with time. Tell us, or tell whoever you call, and let them prepare.
When it is not the sink
- Both bowls of a double sink backing up together, with the trap already clear.
- Water rising in the floor drain or the toilet when the sink empties, which points at the main line rather than the kitchen.
- The same sink blocking again within a few weeks of a proper clear, which usually means the grease is set along a long horizontal run rather than in the trap.
- A dry sink but a wet cabinet, which is a leak at the trap joints and not a blockage at all. Often that is just a collar that has worked loose and wants hand tightening.
Questions about a blocked kitchen sink
- Every guide says to check the garbage disposal. I do not have one.
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Nor does almost anyone here. A waste disposal unit is standard under an American sink and close to absent from a Filipino kitchen, which is why the first instruction on page one is a dead end. Skip it. Your blockage is in the trap under the sink or in the pipe just past it, and that is a better place to look anyway.
- Why does my kitchen sink block and the bathroom one does not?
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Mantika and hugas bigas. Cooking oil goes down warm and liquid, then meets a cold pipe and sets on the walls of it. Rice washing water carries starch that swells and grabs onto that grease. Neither happens in a bathroom. It is why a kitchen sink blocks slowly over months rather than suddenly, and why it comes back if only the surface is cleared.
- Is baking soda and vinegar worth trying?
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On a kitchen sink it is more defensible than on a toilet, because there is no deep water seal between the fizz and the blockage. It will shift a light film. It will not move set grease, and if the sink is holding standing water the mixture never reaches the blockage at all. Clearing the trap by hand takes ten minutes and actually works.
- Somebody already poured liquid sosa in. Does that change anything?
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Yes, and please say so before anyone opens the trap. Caustic soda sitting in standing water burns skin on contact, and whoever undoes that trap gets it on their hands and forearms. It does not stop being dangerous because it has been in there a while. Tell us, or tell whoever you call, and let them prepare.
Trap clear and still not draining?
That is the point it stops being reachable from under the sink. Ring us and say what came out of the trap.
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