Thursday, July 26, 2012

diy thursday: natural drain cleaner


This week our drain started showing signs of draining slower (which could be because of my lovely hair loss over the past year). In our quest to try to use natural cleaners I turned away from buying the usual Drano. Instead, I searched on the lovely Pinterest once again and found this Natural Homemade Drain Cleaner using ingredients I already had at home (yay for saving a trip to the store). All it requires is distilled white vinegar and baking soda. The recipe says to use about a cup of baking soda and half a cup of vinegar. As you may know, together baking soda and vinegar react - so it is best to put the baking soda in the drain first and then add the vinegar. And because of the reaction you need to cover the drain as quickly as possible after you have added the baking soda and vinegar (letting it react in the drain rather than in your tub or sink).

Our drain stopper, however, made it a more difficult to complete this easy task. Our stopper doesn't come out and there is a very small space between the stopper and the drain - so trying to get the baking soda in the drain was a little challenging. I ended up using a little more vinegar than it called for in order to try to get the baking soda down where it needed to be (letting it react a little before I covered the drain). I then waited about 30 minutes and then uncovered the drain and let hot water run through the pipes for a couple of minutes.

Since this venture did not go exactly as planned I didn't have high hopes that it would actually work.  But it did! It worked! I would recommend you trying it as an alternative to using chemicals. If you have a tough clog you may want to repeat the natural homemade drain cleaner an additional time.