Blocked drains in your home can be a significant cause of aggravation to you. Not only do they make using your plumbing a nightmare, but the smells and noxious odours that accompany the blocked drains can leave a bad taste in your mouth too. For most homeowners, the easiest and fastest solution is what they will resort to, which typically means going to their local store and buying the most effective or cheapest cleaning agents they can get their hands on. However, what you may not realise is that you could be causing additional damage to your plumbing, which would only exacerbate the recurrence of the blockages. Here are some of the cleaning agents that you should not gravitate to when dealing with blocked drains.
A mixture of vinegar and baking soda
When used individually, homeowners will find that vinegar or baking soda can be handy when it comes to eliminating minor clogging in their drains. Additionally, these two ingredients are also known for the elimination of pungent odours, which helps to prevent your drains from smell off-putting. However, mixing the two elements in an attempt to create one super cleaning agent would not be beneficial for your plumbing.
A misconception people make is that the bubbling effervescence that occurs when the baking soda and vinegar are mixed will be strong enough to pulverise grime collecting in your drains. In truth, this effervescence acts merely to deodorise your plumbing as the two ingredients mixed creates a balanced pH. Therefore, you may be thinking you are cleaning out your blocked drains when in reality you are not making any progress, which gives the clogs room to grow.
Industrial strength cleaning agents
So since baking soda mixed in vinegar does not work, you should pick out the most potent cleaning agent you can find, right? Wrong! Industrial strength cleaning chemicals may make light work of unblocking your drains, but they also cause extensive damage to the lining of your plumbing. Regular application of these solvents down your drains will lead to the steady decline of the interior of your pipes through gradual corrosion.
As a result, you start to experience additional plumbing issues such as leaks since the pipes have either become too soft and porous or brittle and crumbling. Additionally, if you have a particularly stubborn clog that is embedded in the plumbing, you will find the chemicals in the cleaning agents will start to pool inside your pipes. This accumulation of chemicals makes working with your plumbing extremely hazardous if professional plumbers are to address the drainage problems manually.