Never underestimate the impact of drain cleaning on your household. The smells emanating from the drains can reduce the air quality in your living space and make it appear significantly dirtier than it probably is. The drain cleanliness influences the quality of life in your home. Therefore, it is vital to address the essentials of drain cleaning and maintenance that can make your life significantly easier.
Homemade liquid solutions
You’ve probably heard that a mix of vinegar and baking soda is usually enough to do the trick. Just pour the mixture down the drain. But here’s the trick – you’ll have to wait around fifteen minutes for it to work its magic – destroy bacteria, grease and really do a number on that icky sediment made of unspeakable stuff.
After that, just let the hot water down the drain and everything will be washed away. The most effective and widespread recipe would be to mix 100 ml of vinegar with the same amount of baking soda. Therefore, you will get 200 ml of an ecological solution for a single drain. You can repeat this process with all the drains in your household, but you’ll have to make the same mixture again.
Bonus: Here’s something you probably didn’t know – two liters of sugar-free Coca-Cola can also corrode all that sediment. It’s a surprisingly effective solution if you don’t have vinegar and baking soda.
Utilize those tools
There are many potential solutions to the problem, but here are some basic ones that each of us can handle. A plunger is not only an effective tool for unclogging toilets – it can work on your drains too. However, considering the places most of your plungers are frequenting, it would probably be best if you bought a spare one for drains only.
A bellows-style plunger might be the way to go. Just fill the sink with water and press the plunger firmly down the drain to seal it and give it a tug. In a case of double-bowl sink, you need to close one drain in order to create a complete seal so you could use the plunger on the other.
A barbed plastic drain cleaning tool or any other disposable elongated cleaning tool could be another effective solution, however, it might be one of the less hygienic ones, since you’ll have to pull it out at some point and it will be covered in mucus when you do. Try using disposable gloves while utilizing this method.
Get professional help
In case you’re faced with completely blocked drains, seeking professional help is not something you should avoid, and it certainly does not mean you’ve admitted defeat. The buildup of dirt can create relentless sediment that only experienced plumbers will know how to deal with.
It’s all about proper tools and reliable strategy, and some things, if you are not a plumber yourself, can exceed your grasp. Sometimes, the problem can be so specific that the professionals will have to use a fiber optic camera to see where the “cornerstone” of the clog lies.
Prevention is better than cure
All of that nasty business can be avoided if you follow some simple steps on time. If you want to prevent drain clogs, the first line of defense is a good drain screen. They come in various shapes and sizes, and they can be made of different materials.
However, the only thing that should interest you is if it can stop the chunks of food, hair and other bigger junk. In fact, you should place a drain screen in your bathtub as well, to avoid clogs made out of shed skin cells and soap scum (and this goes for your bathroom sink, too). Also, pouring hot water into your drain once a week will go a long way in preventing clogs.
The old saying goes: “Cleanliness is next to godliness”. Hygiene is what creates a fine line between civility and barbarism. Every household has several hotspots that can turn into a real breeding ground for bacteria. Keeping your drains unclogged and clean is one of those household chores that appear harmless if you skip them from time to time. However, once you end up with a serious clog, the effects are detrimental to the entire household in a way we tend to forget until it happens.