I was cleaning, we had a container of psyllium powder on the counter for years. I didn’t like it because it basically turned to sludge at the bottom of a mug and sitting water above it when you mixed it and I would end up eating sludge with a spoon. Psyllium powder is the active ingredient in Metamucil. I didn’t think anything of it and poured it down the drain and ran the insinkerator to make it drain quicker. Then it slowed. Then it stopped.
I looked it up and the internet said to clean the p trap. I took everything from under the counter, put a bucket under the drain, and loosened the p trap. It dumped gallons, gallons of food waste bilge water onto me after the bucket overflowed. I ran to get towels but there was nothing to do about it since the pipe was unscrewed and wouldn’t screw in fast enough. A dozen towels and water covering everything I took from under the sink and me, I tried to remove the pipe. The insinkerator came undone as well. I looked in the p trap, it’s essentially Gack blocking the entire pipe. I fish it out with my fingers. I put the slime in a bag. I run the insinkerator in the shower to be sure it is empty of slime. I check to see if the slime got beyond the p trap to the wall. It did.
I removed the insert pipe and sludge that has been stuck between the pipe in the wall and the insert section is exposed to air, black sink junk that has not seen air in years or more. It smells like poop. I smell like poop. I am covered in sink water and poop slime. I roll up heavy cardboard and insert it in the pipe and turn it to scoop out the poop slime. I do it as many times as I can and eventually don’t get slime but the pipe turns at the wall a foot and a half from where I put the cardboard in, if the slime is in there I can’t do anything. I reassemble it, lightly fit everything, put the bucket in case of leaking connections, run insanely hot water in the insinkerator. It drains. Until it doesn’t. I wipe myself off so when I plug the insinkerator in poop slime doesn’t electrocute me. Run the insinkerator, it spins for thirty seconds, the water drains. Hopefully it doesn’t clog.
I spend an hour cleaning up the water, washing off everything that got refuse water on it, and get in the shower to scrub the poop smell of it. It takes forever. Though, it was put into a pipe full of very old poop sludge and came out poop slime, apparently Metamucil does what it is supposed to.
TL;DR: I put the active ingredient of Metamucil in a drain and had to scoop rancid sludge from various pipes for several hours.
Comments
So have you seen a drain snake before? It goes down the drain and clears jams. They’re very cheap and would have saved you a lot of grief here.
Basically it’s a long reel of cord that you can rotate a bit.
And that’s why I didn’t make it as an apprentice plumber…
I wonder if one of those cheap plastic drain snakes would have been enough to break it up rather than getting soaking metadookie water.
I know it was an accident and I know it’s a great story for this sub, but did you know what it did before dumping it down drain? Are you the user of the metamucil? I can not fathom the size of this brain fart
“I wipe myself off so when I plug the insinkerator in poop slime doesn’t electrocute me”
Now that’s a sentence I never thought I’d see strung together, it sounds like the ramblings of a deranged homeless person, and I absolutely love it
Was the sink full of water or something?
There can’t really be gallons of water stuck at the trap. Generally you’ll get about as much as the vertical pipe on either side can old. Maybe more if the clog is farther down the drain line.
This is another reason to just put stuff in the trash & not the drain, reminds me of a time a cook poured food thickener down the drain & plugged things up good.
Get a shop vac and suck it all back up.
> I run the insinkerator in the shower
I mean my shower drain gets clogged from time to time, but I’d never thought of installing a garbage disposal. Would certainly make short work of the hair that builds up, toes too.
That sounds awful. I don’t know why you were getting a poop smell, the toilet wastes shouldn’t be going through that line, though the connect may be relatively close. We learned at our house that potato peels are also a no-no to go down the drain.
Psyllium powder tip buy a handheld milk frother that is used for coffee. Pour half a glass of water, put in the psyllium powder, turn frother on to stir it up. Add more water and stir with frother again.
In general, you don’t put powders into the drain. You always run the tap first, then dissolve it slowly until it’s gone.
If you dump a bag of sugar into the drain, it’ll probably do the same thing.
I mean, you posted this on the right forum. This is possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever read. If you’ve actually taken psyllium fiber you’d know it turns into a gel. Where did you think it would go?
It sounds like you’ve probably over-relied on your garbage disposal for some time now. The disposal is supposed to chop up and remove stuff that gets incidentally down the drain. Its not for cleaning up your house.
That fiber, obviously, should have gone in the trash.
All that said, the easier way to actually take the stuff is to measure it out into a cup, then slowly dribble in water while stirring vigorously. This gets it into suspension better than any method I’ve found. Psyllium fiber is hydroscopic, meaning it repels water. So if you just introduce it to water it just floats there or sticks to the bottom of the cup.
Edit: FIXED thanks!
I suppose you could have found a LESS informative video, but it would be tough to do. I guess you only had 90 seconds to solve this problem for some reason.
They didn’t even show how to take the drain apart. Also they are not to be trusted at all because they have a flexible accordion pipe connected to their garbage disposal!
Question: Did you also do the “hot water test drain” without ever reassemblig the pipe?
If no, then that shows you have the ability to infer additional steps.
Drains are not trash cans and shouldn’t be treated like one, despite the presence of a disposal.
Could you have tried drain cleaner?
It’s posts like this one that remind me of why I lost my youthful spark.
My first thought was “why the fuck did you not just throw that powder out in the trash like a sane person?”
My second one was “but slimy gunk and spinny thing sounds like a cool thing to do.”
My third was— and that’s why you have OP.
The fourth was the realization of why the answer to the question my gap-toothed, ruddy cheeked, and soiled-smeared self asked: “why not?” was usually a disappointingly adult, “just don’t – no one does that.” It’s because you get a bough experiences like OP, and you stop experimenting beyond the categories because you’re tired and don’t wanna deal with more (literal and metaphorical) shit.
Shit.
Omg, that’s a nightmare, glad you survived the sludge!
this makes no fucking sense
who dumps dry goods down the drain instead of the trashcan