Contact Lens Solution

[snowbear]

I've been having problems with my bathroom sink clogging up with a solid mass of gunk that is the consistency of a gelatin dessert. I believe that the culprit of this gunk is my wife's contact lens solution and wondered if anyone has any knowledge about this.

Other things that go down that drain include;
Face Soap (solid)
Face wash (liquid)
Toothpaste
Mouthwash
Hand Soap (liquid) But I use it in the other bath and have no troubles there

That's all I can think of at this time.

 

[turnpin]

welcome snowbear proberbly a mixture of all these things plus shaving gel.I wonder what type of trap you have on the basin if it is a resealing type[i.e bottle trap]they are more prone to blockup due to the way they work had to change a few in my time even worse when used on a kitchen sink. Curious to find out please let us knowregards turnpin

 

[snowbear]

Thanks for the welcome and the reply.

Oh yes, I use a bit of shaving cream down the sink now and then, but not gel. But this has happened when I had a full beard and never shaved so I can safely exclude this item along with the liquid hand soap (unless the hand soap is chemically combining with something).

My basin has a tubular trap. I believe it's a P shape. The gunk will collect throughout the entire tubular piping all the way up to the basin's plug. I tried using some type of hair cleaning powder solution weekly/biweekly after cleaning it out last time but that hasn't worked. I have a new type of powder (the powders are used with warm/hot water and you must wait 8 hours before using the sink) that is more for gunk I think, rather than hair. I'm mostly interested in finding the culprit and a solution to prevent having to disassemble the piping and scrape out the gunk. It seems to build up to a slow drain situation within a month or two.

 

[turnpin]

seems likely that there is an obstruction further down the line causing build up after a few weeks how far is the basin from the stack? may require more thorough cleaning possibly rodding with drain springs good luckregards turnpin

 

[snowbear]

I think the stack is within 1.5m of the basin. I'll try cleaning it out to the stack and wait another month or two to see if the problem persists. I'm still curious as to whether or not the eye solution is the main make-up of the gunk. Thanks for your responses. Guess I'll go get that drain snake and get to work.

Well, I disassembled the drain piping under the sink to clean and discovered that this time the gunk was isolated in the piping before the P! There was no blockage at all in or past the P junction this time. I asked my wife if she rinses the sink after using her eye solution and she confessed that she did not. I've noted that there is a thin film of slim that collects around the sink drain. My wife said she only uses a little of the solution, so I believe that the eye solution is drizzling down the sides of the pipe and solidifying causing the clog. I've asked my wife to rinse the sink thoroughly after using her eye solution. We'll see if that solves the problem, but now I have to fix another problem. It seems the cheap pipe of the plug drain was weaker than I am! LOL So now I have to replace or repair that, grrrr. Well, that can happen when you do it yourself.

Oh, good! I found out I didn't break it. It just came unscrewed at a place I didn't know it could unscrew. So, all is well for now.

 

[turnpin]

Oh well at least she and thee now see eye to eyeregards turnpin

 

[snowbear]

ha ha, well it's nice to "sink" the problem