Even though most cleaning products are liquid, they should never be poured down the drain because they contain harmful chemicals.
Homemade drain cleaner can break up even the toughest clogs in your sink. Baking soda, vinegar and Dawn dish soap along with boiling water can safely unclog a drain.
Solid soaps like the classic, old-fashioned bar soap tend to cause clogs faster than liquid soaps. All soap can accumulate on the walls of pipes over time (especially if you don't have a water softener).
The Secret Plumbers' Trick To Keeping Your Drains Clear
But there's a simple way to eliminate greasy buildup, and you already have it at your disposal—dish soap! I always recommend using Dawn dish soap because of its effectiveness against grease, but you can use whichever one you happen to have on hand.
1. Dawn Dish Soap. That blue bottle is a classic for a reason: According to Miami-based residential plumber Ryan Thompson, regular Dawn dishwashing liquid isn't just excellent at removing grease from dishes — it can also clear leftover grease from drain pipes.
You wouldn't think soap is capable of clogging your drains, but it definitely will. Bar soap has a habit of re-solidifying in your drains, leading to clumps of it forming into a large, goopy mass over time that will eventually cause a blockage.
As it turns out, you can actually unclog a toilet with dish soap instead of turning to a harsh, toxic bowl cleaner. Just as natural dish soap helps break down dirt, grease, and food that may be stuck on dishes and utensils, it can help break down what's in your toilet bowl.
It makes sense when you think about it. Because dish soap is meant to break up oils and lift grease and grime from your flatware and utensils, there's no reason why it shouldn't work on the oily soap and human grease build-up accumulating in your tub or shower!
Just like liquid soap, liquid laundry and dishwasher detergents generally do not clog the drains in your home. The same is not true for powder detergents however. Before using a washing machine or dishwasher, it's important to read the user manual on the recommended amount of powder detergent to use per wash.
When you are using a baking soda and vinegar solution to clean out your drain, you are actually causing the rubber and plastic that are used for the drain's pipes to be eaten away by the mixture. Over time, this rubber and plastic will break down, causing the drain to become even more blocked.
Unfortunately, bar soaps are the biggest culprit. Clumps of bar soap can quickly solidify inside your drains. If you want to avoid clogged drains, try switching to liquid soap. It's gentler on pipes and drains and won't leave as much residue or form clumps the way bar soap does.
Yes, Dawn Dish Soap is toxic because it contains harmful ingredients like Triclosan, 1,4-dioxane, synthetic dye, fragrance, and the dreaded methylisothiazolinone. These ingredients can cause mild to severe health conditions like nerve and liver damage, skin irritation, and allergic reactions.
Homemade Toilet Bowl Cleaner With Dawn & Vinegar
The grease-fighting power of Dawn is unmatched. Add that to the acidic nature of vinegar, and you have a powerful 1-2 combo for this easy recipe. In an old dish soap bottle, combine 1 cup vinegar with 1 cup Dawn.
Blue Dawn plus boiling water
Pour this directly into the drain very slowly but steadily to avoid getting burned by splashing water. Allow to sit for 10 to 15 minutes, then run water down the drain to check how freely water flows.
“Vinegar is a good cleaner because it's acidic, but when you add dishwashing liquid/dish soap to it (which is a base or neutral) - you neutralise the vinegar. You take away the very thing that makes it work well. “The dishwashing liquid works that well on its own. Adding the vinegar is a pointless step.”
Pour Hot Water into the Toilet
If you need to heat some in the microwave or the stovetop, you don't want it to reach boiling temperatures. Boiling water can cause toilet porcelain to crack. Allow the hot fluid to sit in the toilet for a few minutes to loosen the clog.
Dish soap is designed to cut through tough grease and food stains on our delicate dishware, but it will also disintegrate the dirty marks and soap scum lining your tub. Pour a generous amount of dish soap into your tub and then start scrubbing with the broom.
Drano Liquid Drain Cleaner flushes clogs away quickly. It works great to remove hair, soap scum, and other gunky clogs.
Drano® Clog Removers can unclog a drain fast. They contain ingredients chemicals that quickly dissolve hair, soap scum and gunk. You can use Drano® Clog Removers to unclog a kitchen sink, bathroom sink, shower or clogged bathtub, but DO NOT use them in toilets.
Adding water to a soap can ruin the preservatives and contaminate the bottle. Bacteria may start to grow, and you could wind up with more germs on your hands than you had at the start, Larson said. It should be noted: Your hands are often covered in bacteria.
With time, baking soda and vinegar may work as a natural drain cleaner on weaker drain clogs, and the benefits of regular drain cleaning can help keep your drains free of clogs. But for tough drain clogs that need to be dissolved right away, you may want to use a stronger drain cleaner, like Liquid-Plumr.
Hydrochloric acid, also known as muriatic acid, is a strong acid that is commonly used to dissolve clogs in drains. This acid works by breaking down organic materials such as hair, grease, and soap scum that can accumulate in pipes and cause blockages.
You can also pour vinegar down the drain on its own.
Pour about 1 cup of vinegar down your drain and let it sit for 30-40 minutes. Vinegar has a very high acid content (which is why it's great on soap scum) and it will break down a good bit of the organic content that is stuck.