pasadena_commut
Well-Known Member
A while back I replaced the garbage disposal (GD), and replaced all the old thin metal pipes under the sink with Oatey polypropylene pipes. All of it was from Home Depot, and most of the pipes were in a double kitchen sink kit. I also had to trim back a little the big metal drain pipe which was coming out of the wall and use a Fernco coupler to attach that to the Oatey trap. The old pipes were completely packed up with crud, and it took a lot of blasting with a conical hose nozzle to finally clear out the awful stuff in the wall drain pipe. I don't want to ever have to do that again.
This set up is still working, it drains quickly, but I can see dark slime starting to build up on the inside of the polypropylene pipes. Directly by looking through the grate holes on the side without the disposer, and indirectly by shining a flashlight through elsewhere. I want to keep these pipes as clean as possible, so that they don't jam up again. Draining multiple sinks of hot water (not all that hot, 120F) mixed with dish soup helped some, but really didn't do all that great a job. The flashlight shows a few places that were completely cleaned, but most of it was still slimed. In addition the underside of the rubber splash guard on the GD gets disgusting and those full sinks of soapy water didn't seem to make any difference at all there.
Note: little grease is going into the drains. Some is unavoidable, it sticks to the dishes, and that ends up on the GD side. Most oil/grease is poured into old milk cartons, taped up, and put out with the trash.
So, what can I pour into these sinks that will detach this crud from these pipes so that it can be flushed out? Preferably nothing very caustic. Or very hot (boiling water might crack that cast iron drain pipe or the sink itself on a very cold day, and Fernco's are only rated for 140F). Some sort of foaming baking soda mix would be good, especially if the foam could stick all the way around the pipe for a while, and get up under the splash guard, so that the base would have time to act on the slime.
This set up is still working, it drains quickly, but I can see dark slime starting to build up on the inside of the polypropylene pipes. Directly by looking through the grate holes on the side without the disposer, and indirectly by shining a flashlight through elsewhere. I want to keep these pipes as clean as possible, so that they don't jam up again. Draining multiple sinks of hot water (not all that hot, 120F) mixed with dish soup helped some, but really didn't do all that great a job. The flashlight shows a few places that were completely cleaned, but most of it was still slimed. In addition the underside of the rubber splash guard on the GD gets disgusting and those full sinks of soapy water didn't seem to make any difference at all there.
Note: little grease is going into the drains. Some is unavoidable, it sticks to the dishes, and that ends up on the GD side. Most oil/grease is poured into old milk cartons, taped up, and put out with the trash.
So, what can I pour into these sinks that will detach this crud from these pipes so that it can be flushed out? Preferably nothing very caustic. Or very hot (boiling water might crack that cast iron drain pipe or the sink itself on a very cold day, and Fernco's are only rated for 140F). Some sort of foaming baking soda mix would be good, especially if the foam could stick all the way around the pipe for a while, and get up under the splash guard, so that the base would have time to act on the slime.