Unplanned Dirty, Stinky, Nasty Repair

First thing this morning, I noticed that the bathroom sink was not draining.  I don't mean it was slow or sluggish.  I mean it was not draining.  We had to run to the Post Office as early as possible this morning to ship a couple of packages but I knew I would now have a frustrating morning ahead of me once we arrived back home.

I had a pretty good idea that the rather long drain pipe running to the side wall was probably clogged with hair, gunk, soap and I don't want to know what else.  This would mean that I would need to disassemble the drain.  I decided to just check the trap under the sink first though just in case this could be a relatively simple problem to resolve.

I emptied out the long vanity cabinet and then went looking for a bucket.  I placed the bucket under the trap and disassembled the trap...  nasty, foul water spilled out...  but the trap didn't have as much gunk in it as I thought it would or should considering the sink wasn't draining at all.  "Hmmm...  that's not the best of news..."  I figured I should assemble everything again to test it anyway.  There was no sense making the job bigger than necessary.  Maybe I could get lucky!  (Yeah, right.)  I cleaned it up and then re-assembled the trap.  As I suspected after seeing the relatively clean trap, we still had a clogged drain.  

This meant that the long drain pipe running to the side wall was clogged.  I should have mentioned that I had already checked the low drains in the house to see if maybe the septic was backing up.  Those drains were clear so it was not a septic problem.  Well...  we still may have an unrelated impending septic problem but the septic system wasn't causing this issue with the bathroom sink.  

Now I need to see what plumbing parts I had on hand.  Fortunately, I'm fairly ready for a few renovation projects so I do have a lot of parts on hand.  It just so happens that I did have a 1-1/2" coupler that I would need for this repair after I cut open the drain line.  I cleared out the rest of the vanity and then retrieved some tools. I would need to cut the long drain pipe inside the vanity running toward the left to the water heater closet.  

I chose a spot very near the wall to cut but left enough room for a future cut or two (just in case).  This would allow me to reach the elbow inside the wall with a small snake so I could clean out the rest of that drain pipe.  

I cut into the drain pipe...  tons more nasty, filthy, smelly water drained out...  when I pulled the cut pipe away, I could instantly see that the pipe was filled with hair, soap, and slimy, smelly gunk.  I went right outside into the windy frigid weather to clean out that pipe.  After quickly cleaning out this section of drain pipe, I came back inside to the warmth, shivering, and pulled out as much of the hair and gunk from the rest of the pipe all the way to the elbow inside the wall.  

Now it was time to sand the cut joint, clean it, and glue it back together with a coupler.  Drain plumbing is pretty easy though since these pipes are not under pressure.  They just need to keep slow moving flowing water inside the pipe.  After gluing the coupler in place and then gluing the piece of drain pipe I had cut and removed, I re-installed the trap under the sink.  

The sink appears to be fixed so I then moved everything back into the vanity and started cleaning up.  I still feel rather disgusting and my hands seem to have perpetual drain nastiness adhering to them but this unplanned morning repair is now behind me...  for now anyway...