Blocked drain - anyone handy?

My moronic son (no idea where he gets it from) has managed to shove a rubber ball down an outside drain.

The ball, the more intelligent among you will already have guessed, is larger than the diameter of the drain hole.

I can pierce the ball and lift it up a wee bit, but even with a liberal smattering of the wife’s lube I cannae get it out, captain

My small handy brain says the o ly other way is to try and break it up (if conpressing it through the drain hole isn’t an opton)

Short of dropping a grenade in the hole, I’m unsure how to go about this one

Any ideas?

Make a hole in the top, big enough to get your finger in, and pull the sides in a bit, as you pull up.

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Slice it with a Stanley knife, asuming you can reach?

Edit: is the ball solid? If so, this will probably not work

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Drill, tap, put hook in and pull out?

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End of a powerful vacuum cleaner perhaps. If a solid ball perhaps something like a soldering iron to make a hole without pushing it further down and then screwdriver to get purchase on it. If you take that approach make the hole at a slant from one side.

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Put large screws in to it. Gently ease up with pliers or mole grips. Slap son. Tell wife that now you have the lube out it would be a shame not to use it.

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Find the other end of the drain and blow down it.

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This

Corkscrew

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If none of the above suggestions work I guess you are just going to have to suck it up :smile:

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You seem to have allowed your son to play in an area with large open holes.
Once you have recovered from using the lube you should feel bad and report yourself to social services.
They have no staff and will not be able to do anything until he has left home, but it is the right thing to do.

P.s. could we have more tales of the lube.

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Thanks for all the replies.

I’ll try and screw it before the f1

Lube’s all gone, @bmtell , so I’ll go in dry and think of you to improve the stamina

Core drill the sucker, then pull it through when it’s smaller

Core drill?

https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/rothenberger-89020-dry-diamond-core-drill-kit/

Screw fix or wherever sell them for drilling large diameter holes if you haven’t got one, taking the core out will give you room to work and ensure it can compress

Corkscrew is a good idea but will depend on how hard the ball is and how chunky your corkscrew is too I suspect

I am shaved and ready for action. Let me know when you are finished. I was going to mow the lawn.

YES! Flammenwerfer!

image

If the drain leads direct to a sewer then there will be some risk of methane. Once the flames get through the ball itself the resulting explosion should mean you won’t need to fish out any cinders.

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