How to Get Rid of Kitchen Sink Smells
A familiar situation: the whole family returns home after summer vacation, and the house has a nasty odor that resembles the smell of sewage. It feels as if you need to ventilate the kitchen, bathroom, and even some living rooms for days. Thankfully, we know a trick that will help eliminate kitchen sink smells. Most importantly, it doesn’t require you to use any chemicals.
Pack your bags and leave for your summer vacation for a couple of months. Enjoy yourself, sunbathe, breathe fresh air, and get some well-deserved rest. After returning home, you will find your home in the same order in which you have left it. No kitchen sink smells will spoil your homecoming.
Why Pour Oil Into the Sink
One might wonder why waste products by pouring them into the sink and toilet? Experienced plumbers explain the situation as follows: when we leave our home for a longer time, no one uses the sink and toilet. As a result, the water plug dries in the siphon neck. Because of this, a smell develops.
Having said so, if you don’t feel like using fresh sunflower oil, you can safely pour already used or even machine oil into the sink and toilet. It isn’t always at hand, though, like sunflower oil is. Plus, its price is not too high.
Moreover, you won’t even need half a bottle of the product to deal with all the plumbing equipment in the house. Judge for yourselves: for a kitchen or bathroom sink, you need no more than 2 oz (60 ml) of oil. Experts advise pouring twice as much into the toilet because it is much larger.
How Oil Can Help Remove Kitchen Sink Smells
It is the exact amount of oil that will form an oil plug on the surface of the hydraulic lock. It will prevent the water evaporation in the mechanism during your absence — the unpleasant smell from the sink appears because of it.
It makes no sense to pour oil into the sink every day, of course. After all, if you use your plumbing equipment regularly, the oil plug will not hold. Do this only when you are about to leave for a month or longer. Upon your return, you will not catch an unpleasant smell from the sink, but the water in the toilet will be at the same level.
Before applying this method in everyday life, remember that pouring oil into the sink is a preventive method of dealing with the problem. If you often catch an unpleasant whiff from your plumbing equipment, figure out what is clogging it. Of course, in this case, it is best to disassemble and clean the mechanism. Good luck!
