Fixing Air Clogs in Drains

by Kevin Smith Author

You’ve lived in your house for a while and over the last little while you’ve noticed your kitchen sink isn’t draining like it once did. You run the dishwasher and both sides of your double sink fill up with water. This has never happened before. Both sinks eventually drain and it leaves behind food and dishwasher scum on your sink that needs to be cleaned away. To make matters worse, you have the same slow drain problem in your bathroom.

So, you try liquid drain products thinking you have a clog in both sinks. But they don’t seem to speed up the slow drain. You even got under the kitchen sink, disconnected the drains and ran a plumber’s snake down the pipe. You were able to push the snake way down into the drain, and you did this several times. But once you reconnected the drain pipes, you still have a sink filling up after your run the dishwasher.

You’re about ready to call in for kitchen and bathroom plumbing repair in Pittsburgh, PA.

Air Clogs Are Really Things

This may sound unbelievable, but you don’t have a drained clogged with food or something else unmentionable. Your drains could be clogged with air! Well, actually pressurized air.

Drains need air in the drain lines to be released so water can drain out. That is why you see those black pipes protruding from a house’s roof. Those pipes go down inside walls and connect to your plumbing allowing air to enter the drain and then be pushed out.

In some areas of a house it is not practical to run a venting pipe next to a drain. In these cases, an air release cap is used. The air release cap allows air in the drain pipe to escape as the water starts to drain. In the case of a dishwasher filling up the sinks, or a slow draining bathroom sink, the air release cap has become defective. Most likely the release inside the air release cap has become stuck, and air has no way of escaping.

An Easy Fix

You may be able to fix this yourself. If your plumbing has an air release cap you can unscrew the cap. Take the cap to a home center or plumbing supply house. Depending on the brand, they come in different shapes and sizes. You’ll want to make sure a new air release cap is an exact fit.

If a new air release cap doesn’t fix the problem, you’ll need to call in an expert for kitchen and bathroom plumbing repair in Pittsburgh, PA. A plumber will have the tools to release the pressurized air and get you back to a normal speed for drain flow.