Corroded cast-iron drain line opened for cleaning by Rare Breed Plumbing in Utah

Drain Cleaning: What Actually Works vs What Makes It Worse

By Court Lundberg

Let me start with the one thing I wish every homeowner would stop doing. Quit pouring chemical drain cleaner down your drain.

I know why people reach for it. The drain is slow, the bottle is three bucks, and it promises to fix it. But here is what that stuff actually is. It is an acid or a base, depending on the brand, and either way it just sits on your pipe, heats up, and eats the pipe from the inside. Maybe it is somewhat safe on plastic pipe, maybe. But the truth is, you have probably got metal pipe underneath. I have walked into more houses than I can count where the copper or the cast iron had been eaten clean through by that stuff. And here is the kicker, if it does not clear the clog, now I am showing up to a drain full of acid I have to deal with before I can even safely get to work, which makes your bill bigger, not smaller.

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A clog is not something you dissolve. There is a problem inside that pipe, and it needs to get handled the right way. So let me walk you through what I would actually reach for, in order.

What Actually Works

A cup plunger, used right. For a soft clog near the top of a sink or tub, a cup plunger (the flat-bottomed kind, not the toilet flange) clears it in a couple of minutes. Get enough water in the basin to cover the cup, get a good seal, and work it with steady firm strokes. A handful of real strokes beats thirty frantic ones.

A hand snake for hair. A manual drain snake, an auger, is a flexible cable you feed down until it hits the clog, then crank to break it up or hook it out. For hair clogs in a bathroom drain, which are almost always in the first few feet, it is cheap, it is at any hardware store, and it works. On a kitchen grease clog it is hit or miss, because a snake can punch a hole through grease and the grease seals right back up behind it.

Hot water for grease. A kitchen drain that is slow from grease will often loosen up with hot water from the tap. Skip the boiling water if you have PVC, which most newer homes do, because boiling water can soften those joints over time. Hot tap water does the job without the risk.

Baking soda and vinegar, for maintenance only. It fizzes, it helps with odor and a little buildup near the opening, and it is fine as a once-in-a-while flush. It will not clear an actual clog, so do not count on it for that.

What I’d Leave on the Shelf

You already know my feeling on chemical drain cleaner. The other one is improvising with a bent hanger or whatever is in the junk drawer. Past the drain opening, that just scratches up the pipe, pushes the clog deeper, or wrecks your stopper. Use a real snake if you are going past the opening.

And do not just ignore a slow drain and hope. A slow drain is telling you something is building up. Slow drains turn into fully blocked drains, and those are more urgent and more expensive than the slow one you had.

When It’s Time to Call

There is a point where DIY has done all it can. Here is when I would pick up the phone:

  • You snaked it, worked it good, and it is still blocked. The clog is deeper or harder than a hand snake reaches, or there is something structural going on.
  • More than one drain is slow at the same time. That is not a local clog, that is your main line, and it needs the right equipment.
  • The same drain keeps clogging. This one is important. A clog that keeps coming back is usually not a clog problem at all, it is a pipe problem. I had a customer whose shower kept clogging, and I went out three times before I finally told her the truth: you can keep paying me to come unclog this, but your money is worth more than that. The pipe itself was the issue, and clearing it again and again was never going to fix the pipe. If you are calling somebody out for the same drain over and over, the honest move is to put a camera down and find out what is actually going on. A sewer camera inspection answers that in an hour.
  • You smell sewage, or other fixtures back up. That is a main line problem, and it is not a job for a bottle.

When you do call us, professional drain cleaning means hydro-jetting and a camera, not just poking a hole through it.

What Hydro-Jetting Does That a Snake Can’t

A snake punches through a clog and leaves the gunk on the pipe walls. Hydro-jetting runs a high-pressure stream through a nozzle and scours the inside of the pipe clean, the grease, scale, hair, soap, and root fragments, all of it. You get a drain that flows like the pipe was new, not one that has just been poked open. For a kitchen with years of grease, or a sewer line that keeps backing up after snaking, that is the difference between a fix that holds and one you are repeating every few months.

Not every clog needs it. A fresh hair clog in the bathroom does not. A kitchen that has been slow for years does. We put a camera down first so we are not guessing, and so you are not paying for something you do not need.

A Few Habits That Keep You Out of Trouble

Cheaper than any clog: a mesh cover over the shower and tub drain to catch hair, cleaned out after you shower. That one step kills the most common bathroom clog. In the kitchen, scrape your plates into the trash, grease included, and keep coffee grounds, eggshells, and the stringy stuff like celery and corn husks out of the disposal. Run hot water for 30 seconds after dishes to push any grease through before it cools and sets.

At Rare Breed we handle drain cleaning all over Salt Lake, Davis, Utah, Weber, Summit, Tooele, Wasatch, Cache, and Box Elder counties. When the plunger and the snake have not done it, call 385-449-0144 or schedule online.

FAQ

Should I pour chemical drain cleaner down a slow drain?

No. That stuff is an acid or a base. It sits on the pipe, heats up, and can eat copper or cast iron from the inside. If it fails, the next person has to work in a drain full of acid.

What actually clears a clog?

A cup plunger for a soft clog near a sink or tub, and a hand snake for hair in the first few feet of a bathroom drain. A snake is hit or miss on kitchen grease because it punches a hole and the grease seals back up.

When is hydro-jetting the better fix?

When a snake only pokes a hole and leaves gunk on the walls. Hydro-jetting scours grease, scale, hair, soap, and root fragments. A kitchen that has been slow for years, or a sewer that keeps backing up after snaking, is the usual case.

What habits keep drains clearer?

In the bathroom, hair is the usual clog. In the kitchen, scrape plates and grease into the trash, keep coffee grounds, eggshells, celery, and corn husks out of the disposal, and run hot tap water for 30 seconds after dishes.

Related: Drains & Sewer | Drain Cleaning | Hydrojetting | Sewer Line Repair

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