A slow-draining sink almost always means something is building up inside your drain pipe. Hair, soap scum, grease, and toothpaste collect over time and narrow the opening where water flows out. The buildup gets worse little by little until the water starts pooling in your sink instead of going down.

Why This Happens

A few things cause most slow drains.

Hair and soap buildup. This is the number one cause in bathroom sinks. Hair wraps around the drain stopper and the inside of the pipe. Soap and toothpaste stick to it and the buildup grows over time.

Grease and food. In kitchen sinks, grease coats the inside of the pipe and hardens. Even small food scraps add to the problem. If you have a garbage disposal, fibrous foods like celery and potato peels can make it worse.

A dirty P-trap. The curved pipe under your sink is called a P-trap. It holds a small amount of water to block sewer gas. But it also collects debris. When enough gunk builds up in there, water can't flow through like it should.

What You Can Try First

Start simple before calling anyone.

Pull the stopper out of the drain and clean off any hair or gunk. This alone fixes the problem in a lot of cases.

If that doesn't work, put a bucket under the P-trap, unscrew it by hand or with pliers, and clean it out. Most of the time you'll find a clump of buildup that's been slowing things down.

For greasy kitchen drains, try flushing with very hot water. Hot water softens and loosens grease, which is a real fix for the actual problem.

Does Baking Soda and Vinegar Actually Work?

Not really. It's one of the most common tips on the internet, but the chemistry doesn't back it up.

Baking soda is a weak base. Vinegar is a weak acid. When you mix them together, they cancel each other out and make salt water with some CO2 bubbles. The fizzing looks like it's doing something, but the gas just rises back up out of the drain. It doesn't build pressure against the clog. It just escapes into the air.

The things that actually clog your drain (hair, grease, soap scum) don't break down from fizzy salt water. On its own, vinegar can slowly dissolve mineral deposits if you let it soak for a long time. And baking soda works as a scrubber, but only with elbow grease on a surface you can reach. Poured down a drain, neither one does much.

What does work? Lye and other chemical drain cleaners actually break down grease and hair through a real chemical reaction. They're not always needed, but when they work, it's because the chemistry matches the clog. Baking soda and vinegar just don't.

When to Call a Plumber

Call a plumber if the drain is still slow after cleaning the stopper and P-trap. That usually means the clog is deeper in the line where you can't reach it.

Also call if more than one drain in your home is slow at the same time. That's a sign the problem is in your main sewer line, not just one sink.

What This Costs

Our drain cleaning starts at $280. The final price depends on where the clog is and how long it takes to clear. Most slow drains are a straightforward fix.

Benjamin Franklin Plumbing of Kernersville serves Winston-Salem, Greensboro, High Point, and the surrounding Triad area. We see slow drains all the time in older neighborhoods like Ardmore, West End, and Irving Park where the original plumbing is 20 to 40 years old.