How to Get Your Wedding Ring Out of Your Kitchen Sink Drain
After your wedding ring has slid into the darkness underneath the sink, the first thing to remember is that you shouldn’t use the sink until your jewelry is retrieved. Running the faucet, or even pouring out a glass of liquid into the drain can send your ring careening on its way to Neverland. Where, of course, you’ll never find it again.
If you’re lucky, your wedding ring didn’t fall far, and retrieving it can actually be easy. Plug in a Shop VacÃ?® Wet/Dry vacuum. Place the hose in the opening of your kitchen sink and hold it firmly in place. Then turn the vacuum on and let it suck for a minute or two. Finally, shut the machine off and check the holding tank. If your wedding isn’t there, then you’ll need to advance to Plan B.
Hopefully you have a “clean out” on your kitchen drain, and you may be able to get your wedding ring out by using this handy device. Look at the straight stretch of drain pipe under your sink. Follow it down to the bend. If you have a clean out, it will be located there. Anything that’s dropped into your sink will often end up at that location. A rather useful device, don’t you think?
Before you open the clean out, place an old soft towel in an empty bucket. Then, place the bucket directly underneath the clean out. Because, the bend in the pipe catches items that fall into the drain, but it also holds some water as well. This water helps prevent sewer gases from coming up the kitchen drain pipe.
With the bucket in place, open the device and let the water and any items come out. Inspect the towel to locate your wedding ring. If it’s not there, use a cotton swab to reach inside your kitchen drain to see if your wedding ring got stuck inside.
Finally, if worse comes to worse, you’ll need to take your kitchen drain apart to get your wedding ring out of it. You’ll need to remove the bend. You’ll need two buckets this time, and a plumber’s wrench or a large pipe wrench. Place a bucket underneath the bend in the pipe under the sink. Then, use a wrench to loosen two connections on the pipe. The first one will be above the bend, and the second connection will be below it. After the connections are loose, you can further loosen them by hand.
Once the bend is free, carefully remove it and empty its contents into the second bucket. If your wedding ring doesn’t come out of the pipe bend, check the inside of it. It may be full of goo and your ring could be stuck inside.
Once you reassemble your kitchen sink drain, you’re done with this task.
