Seemingly from the beginning of time, liquid drain cleaners have been a solution for homeowners having trouble with their drain pipes. But are they truly effective for your drain problems? It may seem harmless, but liquid drain cleaners can come with chemicals that wear away at your pipes and lead to expensive repairs sooner than you might expect. So let’s take a look at liquid drain cleaners and find the answer to the question of whether they’re bad for your piping.
How Do Drain Cleaners Work?
Drain cleaners use a combination of chemicals and formulations, including bleach, lye, salt, sodium nitrate, or aluminum. These ingredients are highly toxic, especially to humans, and cause a series of reactions when poured down your drain. It works to break down organic matter using heat that penetrates the material stuck within your pipes. With the right amount, drain cleaners — in theory — should be able to have your pipes unclogged in a matter of minutes.
Are They Actually Safe to Use?
While drain cleaners can work on certain clogs, not everything is caused by clogged hair or food. So pouring liquid drain cleaner doesn’t actually get to the root of the problem, and they don’t often disappear without leaving a mark on your pipes.
Drain cleaners can degrade your pipes as they pass through. Most pipes weren’t built to withstand the chemical reactions caused by drain cleaners, meaning your best-case scenario is a damaged pipe and a clear clog. That doesn’t sound too promising, nor should it sound good to know that drain cleaners also react with corrosion in your pipes to create unpredictable reactions. You could unknowingly be paying for a product that increases the cost of what you’ll have to pay in the future!
What Other Alternatives Do I Have for Cleaning My Pipes?
So drain cleaners aren’t the safest solution, but what can you do? There are plenty of alternatives to store bough chemical drain cleaners, including preventative methods and some DIY home techniques you can use to get rid of clogs. If you can solve clogs on your own, make sure you exhaust every possibility before relying on inefficient or ineffective methods to get the job done.
Preventing the Problem in the First Place
The best way to deal with a clog is to avoid one at all costs. Preventative maintenance and drain cleaning services can help stop buildups that harden within your pipes. Additionally, keep track of what you place down your plumbing system. Use hair catchers to stop hair and other debris from entering your system, and prevent flushing anything other than toilet paper in your drains — even those “wipes” labeled as flushable.
DIY Methods
Try some DIY methods using plungers or snakes to handle clogs yourself. Flat bottom plungers can help get clogs out of tubs and sinks, while snakes can reach and break down clogs at their source to clear a path for the water. Additionally, try a homemade mixture of boiling hot water and baking soda and let it sit for 10 minutes. After that, flush the drain with a few more pots of boiling water.
Avoid Repetitive Use of Cleaners
Cleaners shouldn’t be used more than once, if at all., so keep your usage to one time at most. Additional use leads to more pipe degradation, especially if the cleaner isn’t doing its job. Get professional help instead of relying on drain cleaning products.
Calling on Professionals
When in doubt, professional drain cleaners can do the job for you! If you have a severe clog, don’t let it marinate much longer. Contact emergency plumbing services to prevent backflows within your tub or sink. A local team will be there in no time with the tools and techniques necessary to diagnose and solve the problem within your drains.
Let Pridemark Pluming Assist You in Your Drain Cleaning Efforts!
You may view drain cleaners as a way to save money, but is it really saving money if they degrade your pipes? At the end of the day, replacing an entire system of pipes is much more costly than turning to professional help to get the job done. It’s why you need to contact local plumbing experts to assist you in your drain cleaning job. That’s where Pridemark Plumbing comes in — a leading provider of plumbing services and solutions for residents all over Arizona.
We’ll clean out your drains, perform a complete system inspection, and recommend future changes you may need to make to keep your drains in perfect condition. Contact us today to schedule your drain cleaning services in AZ or learn more about how to prevent clogs from occurring.