The Great Snake

By Dominic Vautier
2/2003
 

It's a continuing mystery to me just what goes down a drain pipe especially when you have a bunch of kids who continue to consider anything and everything fair game for the drain.  So it was constantly having to deal with one of our four bathrooms and two dishwashers as well as two cloths washers using a drain system that was not well designed especially to handle hair.  One day part of the system backed up.  I grappled with this same problem several different occasions and each time it kept coming back to haunt me.  I used at first force, then imagination, then resorted to obscene oaths, charms and jesters to rid of this sink of its blockage.  I began with the standard snake which has a head well equipped for the usual debris (hair, soap scum, and grime).

This is my standard snake head which works most of the time.  I have a 15 foot and

This usually works but sometimes does not.  I was stopped cold this time about 15 feet down the pipe after taking two easy 45 degree turns.  I thought it could be a metal bottle cap or plastic cap.  I modified one of my snakes to grab the obstacle but I could not even get past the blockage behind it.  Finally after a lot of thought and design work, I modified the snake head to hold a 3/16 drill and was at least able to drill past the obstruction.  This being accomplished I built a sweeper snake by attaching a nail further down on the snake that would collect debris.  It was then able to clear the drain.  I then followed it up with the standard snake head and encountered no further problems.  I sincerely hope that this information can help any and all of you who feel the utter hopelessness of having to call a plumber and spend untold dollars.

Here is my modified snake head which consisted of a drill bit followed by a sweeper claw.

This is my famous sweeper head which works very well on hair.  You can't buy these things.