Taking a shower only to realize you’re standing in a bunch of water that isn’t draining is not how anyone wants to start their day. We’re all busy and it’s tempting to take the most expedient route of dealing with a clogged drain, which is to run to the store and buy a drain cleaner.
But buying that drain cleaner can lead to worse problems down the road, so before you buy it, read to see how it can affect you and what you should do when you have a clogged sink or shower drain in Lakeland, Plant City, Winter Haven, and other central Florida areas.
Store-Bought Drain Cleaners Can Badly Affect Your Pipes & Other Plumbing
Drain cleaners are made up of incredibly caustic chemicals. Getting these on your skin can be harmful. These chemicals include sodium hydroxide, sodium nitrate, aluminum, bleach, and more. When these chemicals interact as they are poured down the drain, the sodium hydroxide and aluminum mix for a reaction that induces temperatures close to boiling. The heat is supposed to break up the clog. Just that alone is a lot for your pipes to handle.
If there is a large clog in your pipes, then there is potential for those chemicals to just sit in your pipes and cause further damage, especially if you have PVC pipes or older pipes with some corrosion. The longer it sits, the worse it gets, and we go into that in what happens if you leave Drano in the drain too long. On an older galvanized or cast iron system that has already thinned from the inside, repeated chemical treatment is one of the things that pushes a house toward repiping.
Additionally, if you use another cleaning product after using a drain cleaner, it could have a reaction with those chemicals.
You should never use store-bought drain cleaner to unclog a toilet, as it can crack the toilet bowl or splash up onto your skin. A cracked bowl turns a ten dollar clog into a toilet replacement. If a plunger is not doing the job, there are safer ways to unclog a toilet, and chemical openers are not on that list.
Drain Cleaners Have Negative Effects on the Environment Around You
Think about where you’re pouring those chemicals - down the pipes, right into our water system and out into the rivers, lakes, oceans, and more, leaving its mark on wildlife and plants in its path. These bottles come with many warning labels about how toxic they are. You’re also risking any residue in the bottles pouring out into the soil as it sits in the trash.
Drain Cleaner Chemicals Can Harm You, Your Children, or Your Pets
The components of drain cleaners are very harmful if they get on skin or are ingested. For small children and pets, this can spell disaster. This is also why we ask, before we open a trap, whether anything has been poured down the drain. Caustic cleaner pooled above a blockage can splash back the moment a P-trap comes loose, so tell your plumber the truth. It changes how we approach the job.
What Should You Do When You Have a Clogged Drain
If you do have a clogged drain, consider using a less caustic method such as baking soda to attempt to break up the clog. Hair is usually the culprit in a shower, and what actually eats through hair in a drain explains why a bottle rarely fixes it. For a sink that is already holding water, start with how to unclog a sink with standing water, and for one that is merely sluggish, how to fix a slow draining sink.
If none of that works, call True Plumbers & AC to come help. A trained plumber can assess the situation and see if your clog is just a clog or linked to a larger issue. That is the difference between routine drain cleaning and a main line sewer backup, and it is not something a bottle can tell you. Stubborn buildup that keeps coming back is a good candidate for hydro jetting.
Call us when you experience drain issues.
We’ve helped countless central Florida homeowners in Lakeland, Plant City, Winter Haven, and surrounding areas to fix their plumbing issues and we’re the experts when it comes to unclogging drains. Better still, keep the clogs from forming: our list of ways to keep your drains from getting clogged is the cheapest plumbing advice we have. When a drain lets go at a bad hour, our emergency plumbing team is on call. Give us a call at (863) 667-6364 whenever you experience a plumbing problem.
