Pro Handyman Blog

If the water drains very slowly down your bathroom sink, you probably have a clog between the sink stopper and the P-trap below the sink. Fortunately, this is one of the easier plumbing problems to fix.

Bathroom sinks take a lot of abuse. Most of the clogs are simply hair mixed in with a little soap and they make a nice ball to slow the water. You can try a tool called a “zip-it” which is nothing more than a long skinny piece of plastic with small barbs on it. You slide this down in between the stopper and the drain and it snags the hair ball and pulls it out. This can get very nasty though as it sprays drain stew all over you and the sink as you pull it out. So pull it slowly and be aware.

You can also take apart the drain assembly, which sounds a lot worse that it is. The sink stopper handle is attached to a horizontal pivot rod. This pivot rod connects to the vertical drain by a nut. Unscrew the nut and pull out the pivot rod. This will allow you to pull the sink stopper out of the sink. You will probably pull out a ball of hair along with it. You can clean this up and reinstall everything back together. The drain should flow much better.

If the drain is still slow, disassemble the P-trap and dump out the water and debris. You will probably see a lot of hair hanging out of the drain (there the P-trap was connected). Remove this hair and reassemble everything back together.