How To Unblock A Badly Blocked Drain
Most blocked drains get fixed with a plunger and five minutes of patience. The rest need tools you don’t keep in the laundry cupboard.
This is the order we work through on a job, and it’s the same order you can follow at home. Work down the list, and stop when you hit the point where continuing will cost you more than calling someone.
Work out what’s actually blocked
Before you reach for anything, spend a minute reading the house. Run a tap in the kitchen, then the bathroom, then flush a toilet. If one fixture is slow and the rest are fine, you’re dealing with a local blockage. If they all gurgle and drain slowly at the same time, the blockage is further down the line and probably outside.
Check the overflow relief gully outside while the water’s running. If it’s full, or it smells, your problem is downstream of the house and it may not be yours to fix.
Start at the plug or the trap
Pull the plug out and look at it. Hair wrapped around a basin or shower plug is the single most common blockage we see, and half the time the fix is a pair of gloves and a hook.
Under the sink, put a bucket down and undo the trap. Kitchen traps collect a grey sludge of fat and food that no chemical touches. A trap that’s cleaned out once a year will save you a callout.
Try a plunger before anything else
A decent cup plunger with a good seal beats every bottle of drain cleaner on the shelf. Block the overflow opening on a basin or bath with a wet cloth first, or the pressure escapes before it reaches the blockage.
Fill the sink so the cup is submerged, then pump sharply. Ten or fifteen solid pumps usually shifts hair and soap. If it’s still there after that, the blockage is out of reach of the plunger and you need to go further down the line.
Skip the chemical drain cleaner
We’d rather you didn’t. Caustic cleaners rarely clear anything past hair and grease, they burn through older pipe walls, and they sit in the trap waiting to splash whoever opens it next. If you’ve already poured one down, tell whoever comes out. There are better reasons to avoid them than most people realise.
Home remedies belong in the same bucket. Vinegar and boiling water work on grease and nothing else, and neither will clear a proper blockage.
Snake the line for hair and grease
A manual drain snake, or a hand auger, is the next step up. Feed the cable into the drain until you feel resistance, then crank it while you push. You’re trying to hook or break up whatever’s in there, not force it further along.
You’ll feel it when the head grabs something. Pull it back slowly and you’ll usually bring the mess out with it. For a shower or basin 10 to 20 metres from the sewer, this is where most DIY attempts end and most of them succeed.
Flush hot water through to test it
Once the drain runs, run hot water for a few minutes to check you’ve moved it properly rather than shifted it. Slow drainage that comes back within a day means you broke up part of the blockage and left the rest. That’s a sign the pipe needs to be looked at, not another plunger session.
Know when it’s the main sewer, not your drain
Stop and call the water authority if a second property is affected, if sewage is sitting in the maintenance hole in the street, or if the overflow relief gully is backing up while nothing in the house is running. That’s a main sewer blockage and it’s cleared at no cost. We’ve written up who’s responsible for what so you know before you’re on the phone.
Call a plumber when the blockage wins
Time to hand it over if the water is backing up into two or more fixtures, if you’ve plunged and snaked and it’s still not moving, if the drain is blocked repeatedly, or if there’s any sign of sewage coming up through the floor or the yard.
We run a camera down first. That shows what’s actually in the pipe before anyone commits to a method, which is why CCTV inspection saves money on jobs that have been guessed at twice already. Then it’s a high pressure jet, or a spot repair if the pipe itself has failed. Same-day across Melbourne, fixed price before we start.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do plumbers recommend to clear drains?
Mechanical clearing, in order of how aggressive it needs to be. A plunger for loose blockages, a drain snake for hair and grease, and hydro jetting for anything that’s packed in hard. We avoid caustic cleaners because they damage pipes and rarely fix the cause.
What can I do to fix blocked drains in Melbourne?
Pull the plug and clean the trap first, then plunge it properly with the overflow blocked. If that fails, snake the line. In Melbourne, if more than one property is affected or the street maintenance hole is backing up, stop and ring your water corporation because the main sewer fix is free.
How do you unblock a badly blocked drain?
Not with a bottle of chemicals. A badly blocked drain needs force applied at the blockage, which means a plunger, an auger, or a hydro jet. If it’s blocked more than once, or the pipe has roots in it, it needs a camera and a repair rather than another clean.
How long should I keep trying before calling a plumber?
About 30 minutes. If a plunger and a snake haven’t moved it, more of either won’t. Continuing past that point risks pushing the blockage tighter, flooding a fixture, or breaking a fitting you then have to pay to replace.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What do plumbers recommend to clear drains?
Mechanical clearing, in order of how aggressive it needs to be. A plunger for loose blockages, a drain snake for hair and grease, and hydro jetting for anything that's packed in hard. We avoid caustic cleaners because they damage pipes and rarely fix the cause.
What can I do to fix blocked drains in Melbourne?
Pull the plug and clean the trap first, then plunge it properly with the overflow blocked. If that fails, snake the line. In Melbourne, if more than one property is affected or the street maintenance hole is backing up, stop and ring your water corporation because the main sewer fix is free.
How do you unblock a badly blocked drain?
Not with a bottle of chemicals. A badly blocked drain needs force applied at the blockage, which means a plunger, an auger, or a hydro jet. If it's blocked more than once, or the pipe has roots in it, it needs a camera and a repair rather than another clean.
How long should I keep trying before calling a plumber?
About 30 minutes. If a plunger and a snake haven't moved it, more of either won't. Continuing past that point risks pushing the blockage tighter, flooding a fixture, or breaking a fitting you then have to pay to replace.
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