The 20-minute check before you call about a blocked drain

A blocked drain is $189 on our board and we will come tonight if you need us. But we would rather you kept the $189 if the fix is in your kitchen already. Here is the check we would do in your place, in order.

Kitchen sink

Run the hot tap for two full minutes. Grease blocks slowly and hot water clears the early stage. If the water rises, pour a kettle of boiling water straight into the drain, wait, and repeat once. Do not use a chemical drain product — it damages old cast iron and we will have to work around it.

Bathroom sink and tub

Nine times out of ten it is hair at the stopper. Pull the stopper, clear it, run hot water. If the tub drains slowly and gurgles when the sink empties, the problem is further down and that is a job for a machine.

Toilet

Do not flush again. One firm plunge with a flange plunger, held for a count of ten. If the bowl fills toward the rim on a second flush, stop and call. In a pre-war building a toilet block can be a stack problem shared with the apartment below.

When to call anyway

Water backing up in more than one fixture. A smell of sewage. Anything in a ground-floor or basement apartment. Those are not slow drains, they are the building telling you something, and the sooner someone with a camera looks the cheaper it stays.