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A crazy way to clear a drain

I had seen this drain clearing product advertised at some point that consists of an aerosol can with a conical seal on it, which essentially used to push out the clog with compressed gas. I thought that was a neat idea, but I figured I could do better with my air gun!

So when my bathroom sink drain was going slow again, rather than jab a coat hanger into it or dump some of the dreadful drano into it, I decided to try using my home made airgun to clear it.

For the first try, I only pumped it up very lightly - maybe 20 PSI. I took the plug out of the sink, plugged up the overflow, ran water for a little bit, and then put the barrel in the drain hole and held a wet rag around it to force the air down the drain.

The first experiment didn't work - nothing much happened. For the second experiment, I pumped it up to about 60 PSI, and repeated the same procedure.

This time was successful, although I ended up with a little bit backsplatter on the celing. But the drain was totally cleared out.

Of course, the airgun shape itself is not ideal for clearing a drain, but I might build a contraption more suitable for purposes like this at some point. Certainly, compressed air worked quite well at unclogging the drain, and it doesn't involve crazy chemicals.

Some years later, different house, same problem.

But now we have YouTube!

So this time, I took a video of the operation!

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