Husband poured boiling water down bathroom sink, huge row!

[ThatLilacHedgehog]

I have a blocked bathroom sink upstairs, my husband tried pouring kettle boiling water down the sink, I told him not to, but when he poured it, smoke from the boiling water was coming out from where the pipes are no water appears to be leaking, just steam from the pipes.

has my husband caused problems? Am I being unreasonable in being angry with him?

could the boiling hot water have melted or caused a leak in the pipes?

She called it smoke not steam

Then asked where steam was coming from. When it was boiling water.

And she had such an argument she felt so damn right about that she came here to defend herself...

Of course people are going to mock. It was a stupid question and her inate sense of rightness over something so blatant makes her look foolish.

She mostly referred to it as steam but once called it smoke, so you'd assume she knows it's actually steam. Unless you wanted to find fault and belittle her I guess 🤷‍♀️

Thanks for proving my point

You blocked the sink and you think he's done something wrong by attempting to unblock it? Granted that boiling water probably isn't the most effective way but still.

I wouldn’t use BOILING water down a bathroom sink for fear of cracking the porcelain. And also because I have those flexi pipes under my sink fitting which are much less robust than the solid pvc pipes most kitchen sinks have. Flexi pipes are more prone to damage/bursting and I have had a flood from one bursting previously, so I am more careful with what goes down my bathroom sink as opposed to the kitchen sink. However, others have suggested various solutions to try in the future…

99% agree. Terrifying.

She called it steam after being corrected and didn't ask "could the steam coming out show the pipes are damaged?" But where the steam, from hot water, came from...

It's not hard to find issue

Do you really think she doesn't know where the steam came from? She's worried that the steam escape from the pipe joints mean there might be damage, and she is correct. Bathroom pipe joints can contain glue that is softened by heat. Hopefully no permanent harm from a one-off use, though.

Except she didn't. She used steam in her OP. But don't let that get in the way of making out she's thick, eh?

That's exactly what she asked. People on here just can't seem to understand her posts. Or are being deliberately obtuse.

That isn't what she asked

And she had a huge row with her partner over it

If MN is siding with the man... you know you were Unreasonable

She is wondering if steam would come out of the pipes still if they're undamaged. It really isn't hard to decipher what she means.

Some pile ons on mumsnet are bizarre. I certainly wouldn't trust the judgement of people that take so much pleasure out of belittling others.

Doubt that OP will come back on here as I think she's sobered up now 😂

this is nearly as good as i cant defrost my freezer thread

If it's a blocked pipe there will be cold liquid in it.

The previous poster was right. You are wrong. PVC can resist heat of around 60 °C (140 °F).

You seem to have failed to appreciate that Celcius and Fahrenheit are different scales.

Because PVC can only resist heat of up to 60 °C it is not used to make kettles - kettles are generally made from polyethylene and other plastics with a much higher heat resistance than PVC.

I also feel sorry for the OP here.

She seems to be aware that lots if places advise against using boiling water to clear clogs in PVC pipes.

She asked her husband not to pour boiling water down the pipes, he ignored her, then steam was coming from the pipes (probably just escaping from non air-tight joints but I can see why that would be alarming).

The pile on is a bit unwarranted and it feels like people are deliberately misunderstanding the OP to join in the nastiness.

I think a lot of folks can't quite grasp that there is a significant difference between submerging PVC in boiling water and holding it at boiling point for a while... and a quick flush of almost boiling water that passes through and rapidly cools down.

One would indeed damage the pipes and absolutely is why kettles aren't made of PVC.

The other won't and is why you can tip the boiling water off your spuds and pasta down the sink or dump some water from the kettle down there in the case of a potential blockage which is most likely to be something that dissolves in hot water (soap or fat).

I don't think anyone is having difficulty grasping that at all.

A pot of free-flowing boiling water is not going to damage your PVC pipes at home.

It also isn't very likely to cause damage when used to clear a blockage, but it is possible that it could.

With that in mind, I don't think the OP is deserving of mass ridicule because, after her husband ignored her and used boiling water, she was panicked at seeing steam escaping from the pipes under the sink.

@CraftyPlumViewer Because PVC can only resist heat of up to 60 °C it is not used to make kettles

I think the pipes are tougher than you think. When out hot water system broke several years ago and we got a new one the plumber took the heat restrictor out or disabled it (where I am it’s mandatory for heat restrictors on hot water systems so kids can’t run a boiling hot bath, jump in and burn themselves). Because our kids were in teens he didn’t think we should be subject to nanny state rules and just asked that we call him if we planned to move so he could revert it.

That means we often have boiling hot water running down our sink for ages - myself or someone else turns tap on, while waiting for it to heat quickly shoots off to do something for a few seconds, gets waylaid and comes back several minutes later. Steam pouring off the water as it slushes down the sink. Generally happens in kitchen but has occasionally occurred in bathroom with me, can’t speak for frequency of others. Quite a frequent occurrence in kitchen though. We have PVC piping. Never had an issue.

Of course it won’t damage the pipes!!!!!!

It wasn't steam "escaping", it was water vapour coming off the outside of the pipes when heated, and rapidly condensing to mist. I can see how it might have looked worrying.

I once used a plunger to fix a slow emptying shower, my God I thought I'd caught a rat, a massive black lump of old hair came up, it was vile!