Residential · Sink, dishwasher and disposer
Kitchen Sink Drain Clearing
Kitchen drains carry the hardest load in the house: fat, starch, coffee grounds and hot water that cools a few metres down the pipe. Here is how we clear them and keep them moving.
- Cable sized to the pipe, gentle on old galvanized
- Drop cloths and a bucket under every trap
- One call books kitchen sink drain clearing anywhere in Aurora
Phone only · a plumber answers, not a form
- Licensed plumbers (ask us for details)
- Quote settled before tools come out
- We tidy up after every job
- Aurora & York Region
Kitchen Sink Drain Clearing at a glance
Signs you need this
- Sink that empties, burps and then stalls
- Toilet water level rising when the tub drains
What's included
- Gear we bring: Drum auger with 50 ft of 3/8" cable, closet auger, trap wrenches, drop cloths and a bucket that stays under the trap
- Job: kitchen drain cleaning
What this page covers
- Why kitchen lines clog
- Clearing the trap and branch
- Dishwasher and disposer links
- Habits that prevent buildup
Aurora note: Older Aurora bathrooms often still drain through galvanized branches; we run the cable gently there so we do not tear through rusted threads.
Why kitchen lines clog
Grease goes down warm and liquid. Inside an exterior wall or under a cool basement floor it sets up like candle wax and catches everything that follows. Rice, pasta and coffee grounds swell or pack into that coating. Over a few years the pipe can narrow to the width of a pencil without any single dramatic event.Clearing the trap and branch
We start at the sink. The trap under the basin comes apart by hand on most plastic setups, and a surprising number of kitchen clogs are sitting right there. If the trap is clean, we run a small cable through the trap arm into the branch line that heads to the main stack. Islands and long counters often mean a long, nearly flat branch, and that is where most buildup hides.Where a branch has been jammed for a while, we may follow the cable with a small jetting hose to strip the walls clean rather than just reopening a narrow channel.
Dishwasher and disposer links
The dishwasher drain hose should rise in a high loop under the counter, or connect through an air gap, before it joins the sink drain or disposer. Without that loop, dirty sink water can siphon back into the dishwasher. When a new disposer goes in, the knockout plug on its dishwasher inlet has to be punched out, or the dishwasher will never drain.A disposer that hums but will not turn is usually jammed. Most have a hex socket on the bottom for a small wrench to free the plates. Always switch it off first.
Habits that prevent buildup
- Scrape plates into the compost or garbage, not the sink.
- Pour cooled fat into a can and put it out with the trash.
- Run plenty of cold water with the disposer, and keep it running a few seconds after.
- Do not send potato peels, eggshells or fibrous stalks through the disposer.
Aurora customers often ask
Why does my kitchen sink back up when the dishwasher runs?
The dishwasher pushes a lot of water at once into a branch that is already partly blocked. The water has nowhere to go but up into the sink.
Can I put coffee grounds down the drain?
Please do not. Grounds settle in the low spots of a branch line and bind with grease into a dense plug.