My Weekend Adventure with Enzyme Drain Cleaner - Long Read

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Chefwong

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When I go to my weekend/vacay house, I've been putting some enzyme drain cleaner in it every night on a slow running sink...

Well, you know that story about how to don't ever put a harsh cleaner in your engine if you have a sludged up engine as it may be have catastrophic results...

I was using the enzyme drain cleaner to do some gradual cleaning of a slow running bathroom sink. I verified it was clean up to the P Trap as I took it apart months ago. Figured it was buildup downstream

Fast forward to 5PM when the wife tells me the sink appears clogged.
I go, check it out....plunge it, no dice.
Take off the P trap - it's clear.
Ended up breaking the brittle brass neck off the stub/trap, so I went all in, got some tools, and managed to get the rest out without it snapping it off on the outlet.

Flashlight showed some major buildup on the outlet.
Did not have any snakes of any sort on hand, I tool a plier and cut up some RG6 Coaxial cable......which allowed me to poke and see more with a flashlight.

Did a quick google, local Home Depot was closing in about 25 minutes.
Drove quick and managed to get there before they closed.
Pickup up a new trap and some drain cleaner...

Got home, tinkered with my DIY snake and this heavy sludge/resistance in the drain. Not the ideal tool by any means, as it had too much give, but after a couple of attempts, and putting the p trap on, and running the water very slowly, I noticed the water did not back up immediately into the sink, which meant to some degree, I had made a dent in the sludge.

Took the P trap off one last time, emptied it, connected it back and poured the drain cleaner through the sink. I poured about 32-40 oz....and no drain cleaner backed up into the sink, so I knew it had punched through..

Ran plenty of Hot water through the sink just to flush out the entire line of the cleaner....
I never did take off the trap up the outlet previously, as this bathroom will get redone in time.
I figured the Enzyme Cleaner would buy me some time, if not do so good downstream in the pipes anyway.
It broke off so much stuff on the ID of the pipe that it formed some gooey mess in the drain, enough to cause a blockage.

(I don't run caustic chemicals to clear drains. I poured it down the sink drain slowly and nothing back up, so I knew it had punched through the sludge. Gave it another 20 seconds of dwell time, and then kept the hot water on to flush out the line of the chemicals. I did not ~sit~ in any section of pipe for less than a minute)

For all you pros/joes out there, have you had any surprises with enzyme based cleaners.

Or was my ~initial diagnosis a mistake~ prior to using enzyme cleaner, but not removing the P trap fully and inspecting the outlet to see how clean or not that portion of the drain was.

There is still a TON of buildup in this pipe, but with the water running full blast, no backing up in the sink for now....
 
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Why can't you take care of it properly with something like a Super Vee drain auger? Can be rented from your "local Home Depot".

A motorized drain auger does more than poking a straight hole through blockage. When the wire twirls, it scrapes the inside walls of your pipes.
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Chefwong

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I walked into HD 4 minutes till closing

I did not want to use any mechanical as this area is on the roadmap to get a full makeover.
Bearing how I poked a hole in the tubular brass by just messing with it, I did not want to get into the same situation ~inside the walls~ with unknown condition of the galvanized pipe. Main stack is CI, but the stubs from there are Galvy
 
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