On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:10:55 -0800, sf wrote:

>On Fri, 07 Mar 2008 04:52:04 GMT, "James Silverton"
> wrote:
>
>> PaPaPeng wrote on Fri, 07 Mar 2008 03:42:31 GMT:
>>
>> ??>> hahabogus wrote:
>> ??>>>
>> ??>>> Pan fry the ground beef...when cooked to your liking put
>> ??>>> the beef in a fine mesh colander and rinse under the tap,
>> ??>>> drain and drip dry.
>> ??>>
>> ??>> Just be sure to rinse it with HOT water so it doesn't make
>> ??>> the grease solidify.
>>
>> P> Don't ever pour fat into the sink. It solidifies almost
>> P> instantly and the fat layer grows like sclerosis. I went to
>> P> help a friend to roto-snake his stuck kitchen sink. We
>> P> ended up having to saw open the ABS drain pipe running from
>> P> the sink under the basement to the waste water floor
>> P> connector. That 2 inch pipe was plugged solid with fat for
>> P> more than a foot run and of course we had to scrape out the
>> P> rest of the pipe where the fat had not formed a solid plug
>> P> yet. I think we finally just tossed out the old pipe and put
>> P> in a new 8 ft. length where that helped.
>>
>> It's not a good thing to do but the old instructions were to
>>pour it down the sink with the disposer running with cold
>>water.I that solidified the fat and broke the solid into small
>>particles.
>>
>Still not a good idea. Someone just posted about a clogged drain that
>was "sludge" somewhere out in the line. What do you suppose that
>sludge is? Fat and other greasy buildup.


The details are coming back now. The rental snake would only go 6
feet and that was it. So it wasn't hard to decide where to cut the
pipe. The stoppage would be at the first 90 deg elbow and we cut the
the pipe a foot from the elbow. One look at the solid plug of fat we
didn't even bother to examine it further. Fortunately that 12 foot
downstream straight run was easily accessible and we cut off 8 feet so
that we could put in a new length. We had bought a pair of 2 inch x 6
inch plumbing rubber hose connectors made for just this purpose. It
was secured by hose clamps and therefore the new pipe would be
removeable for future blockage problems. Digging the solidified fat
out was upstream of the cut. The goob filled a litre in a fast food
bucket.

The wife had been complaing about the sink draining too slowly for the
few years they had lived in the house. I can imagine the buckets of
boiling water and drano they must have poured into it. But all that
would do was to move the fat plug further down the pipe. The house had
at least one previous owner. So the fat was not their doing.

Since the friend got me to help he also wanted help to fix his kitchen
faucet. From my own faucet I was already convinced that his fixture
too would have a heroic lime build-up and not worth repairing. So a
new faucet. In taking out the old faucet the wood in the laminate
countertop was already breaking apart due to wet rot. Fortunately
there was enough body left not to need a complete kitchen countertop
replacement. All the countertops would have to match eh! The wood
rot would be from the leaky faucet as well as from the overflowing
sink.

The moral of this story is the kitchen sink is for wastewater only.

Don't pour or wash fat into the sink and flush as little food scraps
down it as possible. The the food scraps adhere to the solidified fat
in the drainpipe. If your cooking generates a lot of waste fat have
an empty food can handy and pour into that. For smaller amounts pour
the fat into paper towels or old newspapers. Wrap it in a plastic bag
and toss that out in the garbage. Same thing with food scraps.
Collect them in a plastic bag and dispose with the solids garbage. I
have a plastic tabletop waste can with a lid. I line it with the
veggie plastic bag that we tear off from a roll at the grocers.
Therefore my main kitchen garbage can has all these little 2 litre
balls of garbage in knotted plastic bags that don't leak and don't
smell. Up here in the Great White North we don't have crocoach and
creepy crawly inside house pests. In warmer climes mini bagging your
garbage should help keep the pests at bay. Housekeeping is a breeze.