Kitchen signs
When grease isthe cause.
A grease blockage behaves in a way nothing else does.
01
It drains, then comes back
Run the tap lightly and it goes down; fill the bowl to wash up and the water comes back and stands. The run is narrowed, not closed, and that is exactly what grease does, leaving a small channel in the middle.
02
One bowl affects the other
Empty the right bowl and the water rises in the left. Both share one trap and one branch, so the blockage sits past the point where they meet, not in either strainer.
03
The washer backs into the sink
A dishwasher or a washing machine on the same branch pushes out a slug of hot water at once. If the sink rises while it drains, the branch cannot take it and grease has narrowed it.
The kitchen, short
The kitchen job, short.
Service
Kitchen drain, sink and trap unclogging
First cause
Cooking grease cooled onto the pipe wall
Method
Trap off, small electric snake, wall scraped
Where it applies
Kitchens in houses, flats and small food units
What we advise against
Pouring caustic products down a kitchen drain
Hours
Daily, 6:00 in the morning to 12:00 midnight
How it works
From the trap tothe branch.
Four steps, all under the sink, with nothing opened up.
We drop the trap into a bucket
The trap is the first thing we open, and it tells us most of the story. If the grease has gathered only there, the branch beyond it is usually sound and the job ends at that point.
The snake goes into the branch
The small electric snake enters at the branch mouth and works in on a flexible cable. Turning it scrapes the pipe wall, instead of punching one narrow hole through the middle of the grease.
We bring the scrapings out
What comes off goes into the bucket rather than down the line, because a pushed slug of grease lodges at the first change of direction and becomes a bigger problem outside the house.
We refit and test it full
The trap goes back, both bowls are filled and released together in front of you. Testing with a real volume is what proves the bore is back, not a thin run from the tap.
Why grease
How grease sets ina pipe.
Cooking oil goes down liquid because it is hot, carried by hot washing up water. A short distance into the pipe it cools, because the pipe sits under tiling or inside a wall at a far lower temperature than the water. Cooled oil sets and binds to the wall, and every session of cooking adds to the layer.
The layer does not stay pure grease. Its surface is rough, so it holds everything passing over it: food waste, rice grains, coffee grounds, fibres off a scourer, and hair carried in from washing. That mixture is what actually stops the sink. The grease is only the glue holding it to the wall.
This is why hot water and detergent do not solve it. Hot water genuinely melts grease, but it travels a short way and cools, so the grease sets again slightly further along the same pipe or in the branch beyond it. The result is a blockage moved to a harder place rather than removed.
Caustic products are worse. They open a narrow path through the middle and leave the layer on the wall exactly where it was, so the blockage returns sooner and with less bore each time. They also sit in the pipe waiting for whoever opens it next. The only real fix is scraping the layer off the wall and lifting it out.
External links for referenceKuwait Municipality (public health and drainage requirements)
Questions
Asked about thekitchen sink.
It melts grease in the first stretch of pipe only. Past that it cools and the grease sets again further along, so the problem moves somewhere harder instead of going away. On plastic pipework it also stresses the joints.
We would rather you did not. These products open a thin path through the grease and leave the layer on the wall, so it returns with less bore than before, and the product stays in the pipe for whoever opens it next.
Washing water and light residue past the strainer are fine. Cooking oil, meat fat, coffee grounds and leftover rice or pasta are not. Used oil belongs in a sealed container in the bin.
A fast repeat means the layer was never fully removed, or the branch has a weak fall that lets grease settle in it. We scrape the full branch and tell you if the pipe itself is the problem.
The same principle with far more volume. A commercial kitchen outlet needs its grease trap checked before the branch, because anything getting past the trap goes straight into the building's shared line.