The complete guide
How To Clean Narrow Pipes And Overflows With A Long Flexible Brush
The dirt you cannot see
You can scrub a basin until it shines and still have a smell hanging around it. The reason is usually out of sight. Behind the overflow slot is a hidden channel that only gets wet when the basin is nearly full. Below the plughole is a short run of pipe coated in soap film. Neither place ever gets cleaned in the normal run of things, and both stay damp.
Damp plus soap plus skin and hair makes slime. It is a grey or black film that clings to the pipe wall and builds slowly. It smells, and over time it narrows the pipe and gives hair something to cling to. That is how a slow drain starts.
A cloth cannot reach it. A short bottle brush is too fat or too stubby. What you need is something long and thin with bristles on the end, and that is all this tool is.
What this brush is
It is a single brush with a total length of 155cm, according to the maker. The stem is stainless steel. At the working end is a nylon bristle head that the maker gives as 5cm long and 1cm in diameter.
Those two numbers tell you most of what you need to know. A 1cm head is slim. It goes into openings that would stop most household brushes. And 155cm is a lot of reach. On most jobs you will use only the first part of it, but the spare length means you are never the one who runs out before the dirt does.
The maker lists the colour as white and the weight as 60g. There is one brush in the pack.
How flexible it really is
The maker describes the brush as very flexible and says it works in curved pipes where the bend is less than 90 degrees. It is worth being clear about what that means at home.
A long, sweeping curve is no trouble. Neither is a pipe that changes direction gently. The steel stem flexes and follows the shape, and the head keeps scrubbing as it goes.
A tight turn is different. The trap under a sink or basin doubles back on itself in a very short space. That is a sharper bend than the maker describes, so the brush may stop there. If it does, leave it. Forcing a steel stem round a tight corner kinks it, and a kinked stem never slides the same way again. Traps are easy to deal with another way, which we will come to.
Where a slim brush earns its keep
The overflow is the obvious place. If the slot or hole is wider than 1cm, the head will pass through and you can scrub the channel behind it. This is often where a stubborn basin smell lives, and a minute of brushing followed by a rinse can clear it.
The top of the waste pipe is the next. Feeding the brush down through the plughole lets you clean the walls of the waste above the trap. Check the gaps in the plughole grid first, because they vary from one fitting to the next.
Beyond that, it suits any narrow pipe or drain opening around the house that you can reach from one end and that has no sharp turn in the first stretch. The maker lists pipes as the surface it is meant for and drainage as its use. If the opening is at least a little wider than the head and the route is fairly straight, it is a fair candidate.
It is not the right size for wide pipes. A 1cm head inside a broad waste pipe touches one side at a time and will take all day. And it is not a tool for toilets or outdoor gullies.
Cleaning brush, not blockage remover
It helps to be honest about what a brush like this can do. It cleans. It scrubs film off pipe walls and loosens light build-up before it becomes a problem. On the way back out, the bristles may bring some loose hair with them.
It does not clear a sink that has stopped draining. A solid plug of hair or fat needs pressure from a plunger or the grip of a drain snake. If you push a slim brush into a solid blockage, the likely outcome is that the head pokes a small hole through it, the water drains slowly for a day, and then you are back where you started.
Think of it the way you would think of a toothbrush. It is for routine cleaning, and routine cleaning is what keeps bigger trouble away.
Using it step by step
Put on gloves and have an old cloth or some kitchen roll to hand. Run a little warm water so the pipe is wet.
Wet the bristle head and add a drop of washing-up liquid. Feed the head into the opening and push gently. As you go, turn the stem between your fingers. The maker describes the bristles as rotating, and it is this turning that lets them scrub right round the pipe wall instead of just one side.
Work in short strokes, a hand's length in and out, moving a little deeper each time. When you feel the brush stop, do not lean on it. Ease back, turn the stem a little and try once more. If it still stops, that is as far as it goes.
Draw the brush out slowly and wipe the head on the kitchen roll. The first pass is usually the dirty one. Rinse the head, go in again, and repeat until it comes out more or less clean. Finish by running warm water through the pipe or filling the basin so that water runs through the overflow.
You do not need anything stronger than washing-up liquid. We do not recommend chemical drain cleaners.
If the trap is the problem
When the brush will not pass the trap, or the smell seems to come from lower down, clean the trap itself. Put a bucket underneath, unscrew the trap by hand, and tip the contents out. Rinse it in another sink or outside, and use the brush on the short straight pieces while they are off. Then refit it, hand tight, and run the tap to check for drips.
That is ordinary household maintenance. Anything that means cutting, moving or replacing fixed pipework is different. That is a job for a qualified plumber, and the Irish Building Regulations apply to drainage work.
If more than one fitting is slow or smelly at the same time, the cause is likely further along the drain. Inside your boundary, call a plumber or drain contractor. If the blockage is in a public sewer, contact Uisce Éireann or your local authority.
Brush, plunger or snake
People often ask which of the three they should own. The honest answer is that they do different jobs, and the symptoms tell you which one to pick up.
If the water drains at a normal speed but the basin smells, the pipe is dirty and not blocked. That is a job for a brush. If the water drains slowly or not at all, something is in the way. Start with a plunger, and move on to a drain snake if the plunger does not shift it. Once the water is running again, the brush comes back out to clean what is left on the walls.
Used that way, a slim brush is the tool you reach for most often and the one that saves you from needing the other two.
Looking after the brush
Rinse the head under warm running water as soon as you finish. Work a little washing-up liquid through the bristles with gloved fingers, rinse again, and shake off the water. Wipe the stem from handle to head with a cloth.
Let it dry before you put it away. Then coil it loosely or hang it up. The one thing to avoid is a sharp bend, because a kink in a steel stem tends to be permanent. A dry cupboard suits it better than a damp shed.
Keep the steel stem away from polished and enamelled surfaces when you are feeding it in. The nylon head is soft, but the stem is metal, and a little care keeps the basin unmarked.
The short version
This is one long, slim cleaning brush. The maker gives the length as 155cm and the bristle head as 5cm by 1cm. The stem is stainless steel, the bristles are nylon, and it weighs 60g.
It follows gentle curves and stops at tight ones, so do not force it round a trap. Use it with warm water and washing-up liquid to scrub overflows and narrow waste pipes every month or two. It keeps smells down and slows the build-up that leads to blockages. For a sink that will not drain at all, reach for a plunger or a drain snake instead.