The complete guide
How To Choose And Use A Sink And Bath Plunger Set
The slow sink that will not wait
Most blockages give you a warning. The basin takes longer to empty after you brush your teeth. The kitchen sink holds a few centimetres of grey water while you finish the washing up. Then one evening it stops going down at all, and it is always the evening you have people coming over.
What sits in the pipe is rarely a mystery. In a bathroom it is hair bound up with soap. In a kitchen it is food scraps and fat that went down warm and set cold. Most of the time that plug is sitting in the trap, the curved piece of pipe right under the plughole, or just beyond it. That is close enough for a plunger to reach with pressure, which is why a plunger is still the first tool worth picking up.
This set gives you two of them. One has a 110mm cup and the other a 140mm cup, and each has a wooden handle that screws on by hand.
How a cup plunger does its job
A plunger does not grab anything. It moves water. When you press the cup down over a plughole, you push water down the pipe towards the blockage. When you pull back up, you draw water the other way. Do that a dozen times and the plug gets rocked back and forth until it loosens, breaks up, or shifts along to a wider part of the pipe where it can wash away.
Two things make that work. The first is a seal. The rim of the cup has to sit flat on the surface around the plughole, with no gaps for air or water to escape. The second is water. Air squashes and water does not, so a cup full of water passes on far more of your effort than a cup full of air. If the sink is empty, run in enough water to cover the cup before you start.
There is one more detail people miss. A basin, a bath and many kitchen sinks have an overflow, the slot or hole near the top. It connects to the same waste pipe. If you leave it open, every push sends air and water out of the overflow instead of down at the blockage. Hold a wet cloth firmly over it with your spare hand and the plunger suddenly feels far more effective.
Why two sizes are worth having
The size that matters is the cup diameter, and the right one depends on what the cup has to sit on.
The 110mm plunger is the one for tight spots. A bathroom basin curves quickly away from the plughole, and the tap or pop-up waste often sits close by. A smaller cup finds a flat ring to seal on where a big one would rock on the curve. It is also the handier choice for a bidet or a small cloakroom basin. The maker gives its total length as 29cm, which is short enough to work under a low mixer tap.
The 140mm plunger covers more ground. The floor of a kitchen sink, a bath or a shower tray is flatter and wider, and the wastes are bigger. A larger cup moves more water with each stroke and seals comfortably around a wide waste. The maker gives its total length as 37.5cm, so you have a little more reach into a deep sink or down to the floor of a bath.
Having both means you are not trying to make one cup fit everything. It also means you can keep one for the kitchen and one for the bathroom, which most people prefer once they think about where each has been.
What the set is made of
The handles are wood, and each one joins its cup with a screw thread that you turn by hand. No tools are involved. You can unscrew them again, which makes the set easier to tuck away in a cupboard. The maker lists the colour as red and describes the set as four pieces, which fits two cups plus two handles.
The material of the cups is not stated by the maker, so we will not guess at it. The maker gives the weight as 206.88g and the overall dimensions as 37.5 x 14 x 14cm.
Using a plunger properly
Start by clearing the area. Take out the plug, lift out any strainer, and remove whatever is sitting in the sink. If there is a deep pool of dirty water, bail some out into a bucket so it does not slop over the edge, but leave enough to cover the cup.
Block the overflow with a wet cloth. Set the cup over the plughole and press down slowly the first time. That first slow push squeezes the air out from under the cup. After that, work the handle up and down with short, firm strokes while keeping the rim in contact with the surface. Ten to fifteen strokes is a fair round. Then lift the plunger away sharply and watch the water.
If the level drops, you have shifted something. Run the hot tap for a minute to carry the loosened material away, then plunge once more for good measure. If nothing changes, try another two or three rounds before you give up. Blockages often move on the third attempt, not the first.
On a double kitchen sink, the two bowls share a waste. Put the plug in the second bowl, or have someone hold a wet cloth over its plughole, or all your effort will come up the other side.
A word of caution about chemicals. We do not recommend chemical drain cleaners, and a plunger and a caustic liquid are a bad mix. If someone has already poured a cleaner into the drain, plunging can splash it back at your hands and face. Flush with plenty of cold water first, wear gloves and eye protection, and if you are unsure, leave it alone.
Where a plunger suits and where it does not
The maker lists washbasins, baths, showers, bidets, sinks and toilets among the uses. In practice, a flat cup like these seals best on a flat or gently curved surface, which is why it feels most at home on a sink, basin, bath or shower tray. A toilet pan has a deep, curved outlet, so getting a good seal there takes more care, and some blockages in a toilet will need a different tool.
A plunger works on soft blockages that sit close to the plughole. Hair, soap, food residue and grease are all fair game. It will not help with a solid object such as a bottle cap or a small toy lodged in the trap. Pushing harder at something solid can wedge it tighter. In that case, put a bucket under the trap, unscrew it by hand and lift the object out.
It also has limits further along the line. If several fittings back up at once, or water rises in the bath when you empty the sink, the trouble is in the shared drain and not in one trap. Inside your property boundary that is a job for a drain contractor or a qualified plumber. If the blockage is in a public sewer, contact Uisce Éireann or your local authority. No hand tool will fix that from the kitchen.
Looking after the set
Care is short. Rinse each cup under running water after use, inside and out, and wipe the handle. Wood does not enjoy standing wet, so do not leave a plunger sitting in a bucket of water or resting cup-up with water pooled inside. Let both parts dry before you put them away.
Store the set somewhere dry and out of direct heat. Under the kitchen sink is the usual home, and unscrewing the handles lets the pieces lie flat in a small space. Check now and then that each handle is screwed in snugly before you use it. A handle that has worked loose will wobble and make it harder to keep the seal.
It is worth a quick look at the rim of each cup from time to time. A cup that has split or gone hard will not seal well, and at that point it has done its service.
Stopping the next blockage
Once the water is running freely, a few habits keep it that way. A strainer over the bath or shower waste catches hair before it reaches the pipe. In the kitchen, scrape plates into the bin and wipe greasy pans with kitchen roll before washing them. Pour cooled fat into a container and bin it. Running the hot tap for a minute after a greasy wash-up helps stop fat settling in the trap.
None of that is hard, and it means the plungers spend most of their life in the cupboard, which is where you want them.
The short version
This is a set of two cup plungers with wooden handles that screw on by hand. The cups measure 110mm and 140mm across, and the maker gives the total lengths as 29cm and 37.5cm. The smaller one suits basins and tight spots. The larger one suits kitchen sinks, baths and shower trays.
Cover the overflow, keep the cup under water, and use short firm strokes. Rinse and dry the set afterwards. If one fitting is slow, start here. If the whole house is backing up, phone a plumber, and if it is the public sewer, contact Uisce Éireann or the local authority.