by Joe Brooks

Created on: April 23, 2009

There are good reasons to try to unclog your drains before calling in the plumber. You might be able to save serious money. And it might even be a quick and easy fix. If not, you can always call the professional after trying it yourself. You can use these ideas to give it a good try without doing any harm.

The most common problems are with sink, tub, or shower drains, and with plugged toilets. There are steps to be taken in all these cases. The solutions offer here do not include chemical drain cleaners. There are good reasons not to use those, including safety and environmental concerns.

A few tools will be needed, if you want to give unclogging your drain a good try. Plungers come in several styles. The flat-bottomed one is most useful for sinks, while the extended-collar model works best for toilets. You might want ordinary household hand tools for undoing drain covers and such. And you'll want a pipe wrench if you plan to tackle removing a p-trap. If you are really serious about dealing with the issue, you probably want to have a snake or drain auger.

Before you start, make sure that you really have the problem localized. If all your drains are running slowly, you may have a problem in the drain system leading away from your home. Or, if you are on a septic tank system, you may have a problem there. Your tank may need to be pumped, or you may have issues with the drain field. Home plumbing systems are vented. It is possible that a problem occurs because the vent is blocked, and not because the drain is blocked. If you are not up to investigating that matter, best call on a professional.

Once you do get the local issue diagnosed, you can start with the easiest solution and hope for the best. Most sink stoppages are near the source, and most toilet blockages are within the accessible parts of the system.

You can check the strainer or other cover on the drain. Give it a good close inspection, possibly with the aid of a flashlight. Try to remove any solid material you find, such as hair in a tub or shower drain or vegetable material in a kitchen sink drain. That might solve your problem right there.

Next you can try the sink plunger. Take it easy. You don't want to splash the contents of that drain all around the kitchen or bathroom. If a gradual progression of plunging, from gentle to vigorous, doesn't work, consider the next step.

If the first part of the drain isn't where the issue is found, suspect the trap. Under a kitchen or bathroom sink you should be able

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