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While working upstairs, letting the mechanical water-mediated clothes thrasher (aka: washing machine) clean some sheets, I heard a strange noise. I went downstairs, holding the all-to-common homeowner pang of fear in my belly (oh lord, what is broken now?). Thirty six of out thirty seven times, it's nothing. Unfortunately this was the 37th time.

The washing machine vents the excess water into the utility sink. The water (and excess detergent) goes down the drain, to the sewer, and eventually ends up in the Chesapeake, contributing to its death. This time the compact was broken - the water (and suds) were just sitting in the sink. If I hadn't come down, the next water dump probably would have overwhelmed the sink. I opened the lid to the washer to pause it and began a series of futile actions.

1. I tried the plunger. That didn't work.
2. I tried to remove the trap. We don't own pliers large enough to fit around the bolt. Curses!

I decide to wet/vac the water out of the sink to let the washer finish. I now know that our washer (on permanent press) fills and empties the basin THREE times. That's a lot of water.

After returning from Home Depot with a big channel plier:

3. I remove the trap and find....nothing. Oh crap.

After returning from Home Depot with an drain snake (less awesome than it sounds):

4. I run all 25 feet and remove.....nothing. Double crap.

Now I'm all out of ideas. I'm forced to call in a plumber. He tries to clear the clog with his drill-powered 25 foot drain snake. Fail. What's next? More power tools of course. He cuts through the drain pipe (shared with the kitchen sink) with a reciprocating saw

and runs 10 foot long heavy duty snake segments through our pipes. He has five of these. The first three do nothing. Halfway through the fourth one, he hits the blockage. He clamps up the cut and I pay him $240.

To delay this from occurring again, I've installed some filters to catch the crud from the washer and other junk we put in the sink.

After the first rinse, I'm already seeing lint being collected.

When doing this load I used 1/3 the recommended detergent and even on the final rinse, there's still a lot of suds.

This article is right, I guess.