Beyoğlu Kitchen Sink Unclogging

In a kitchen drain, the biggest build-up is grease. Fat that arrives with the washing-up water clings to the pipe wall as the pipe cools and narrows the bore a little more each time. A blockage that is only punched through with a snake leaves this layer in place, so the Cantley team first scrapes the grease away with robotic heads and then flushes the line with high-pressure water jetting. When the job is done, the inside of the pipe is checked with a camera, and the footage shows whether any grease residue remains.

Many of the masonry apartment buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Cihangir, Galata and Tarlabaşı have been split into flats over time, or converted into hotels and short-term rentals. Each conversion added new kitchens, connected to the old cast iron stacks at different angles and often with too little slope, so a single blockage can form at several joints at once.

In restaurants and cafés around Karaköy, Galata and İstiklal, kitchens built in basement floors can have their drain outlet sitting below the level of the drain line, so grease blockages and backflow are often seen together. Whether a dishwasher has been connected to an old stack in a flat you have just moved into, or the sink in a small workshop keeps filling with greasy water, the first sign is usually water standing in the sink. In small hotels around Galata, a single blockage can leave several rooms unusable at the same time.