I know there are amateur plumbers here. I'm not thinking of toilets drains because I know they're nasty by definition.
I've recently gone through issues with a few drains, disassembled a few, and tried cleaning what I can disassemble. The one in my kitchen looked a bit nasty and somewhat smelly. Kind of a light brown, unevenly formed sludge along the vertical walls of a couple of joined pieces of polypropylene pipe. I could clean off most of it with a toothbrush, but needed scouring powder to get a somewhat harder layer cleaned off. Earlier I had taken out the polypropylene P-trap (I installed it years ago to replace a broken piece) and the submerged portion had a thin, uniform layer of brown sludge that cleaned off easily with a toothbrush and dishwashing detergent. Recently I have been using a few different bacterial/enzyme treatments, so maybe that helped a bit even if it didn't get as clean as the after photos on the label of a drain treatment. But they didn't seem to do that much for the vertical pipe above the trap.
But recently I visited my parents' house and they asked me to look at why their kitchen sink was leaking. The culprit was a corroded steel vertical pipe. Not sure why that was in there when everything else (except for the zinc nuts) was brass and plastic, but I guess that's what their plumber used.
But when I took apart the P-trap (just to clean it since I had the chance) it was kind of nasty. It had a thick, gooey black mess that seemed like old kitchen grease. It wasn't blocking anything (just kind of coating the insides), but this was nastier than anything else I'd ever seen. I think a periodic drain treatment might have helped.
Has anyone ever had anything like the before photos for these enzyme treatments? Not like a hair or food clog, but maybe something like before image here:
I'm also somewhat skeptical that it could ever get that clean. I thought maybe closer to the before and after photos of a bottle of fuel system cleaner.
I've recently gone through issues with a few drains, disassembled a few, and tried cleaning what I can disassemble. The one in my kitchen looked a bit nasty and somewhat smelly. Kind of a light brown, unevenly formed sludge along the vertical walls of a couple of joined pieces of polypropylene pipe. I could clean off most of it with a toothbrush, but needed scouring powder to get a somewhat harder layer cleaned off. Earlier I had taken out the polypropylene P-trap (I installed it years ago to replace a broken piece) and the submerged portion had a thin, uniform layer of brown sludge that cleaned off easily with a toothbrush and dishwashing detergent. Recently I have been using a few different bacterial/enzyme treatments, so maybe that helped a bit even if it didn't get as clean as the after photos on the label of a drain treatment. But they didn't seem to do that much for the vertical pipe above the trap.
But recently I visited my parents' house and they asked me to look at why their kitchen sink was leaking. The culprit was a corroded steel vertical pipe. Not sure why that was in there when everything else (except for the zinc nuts) was brass and plastic, but I guess that's what their plumber used.
But when I took apart the P-trap (just to clean it since I had the chance) it was kind of nasty. It had a thick, gooey black mess that seemed like old kitchen grease. It wasn't blocking anything (just kind of coating the insides), but this was nastier than anything else I'd ever seen. I think a periodic drain treatment might have helped.
Has anyone ever had anything like the before photos for these enzyme treatments? Not like a hair or food clog, but maybe something like before image here:
I'm also somewhat skeptical that it could ever get that clean. I thought maybe closer to the before and after photos of a bottle of fuel system cleaner.