Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Making your own drain cleaner

c4goesbang - 19-9-2011 at 06:46

Anyone have any home recipes for drain cleaner, (that will not corrode metal pipes?) I have tried pouring a box of sodium bicarbonate down the drain then adding vinegar. This works fairly well. Anyone have a better cure for stopped drains?
Thanks in advance.

DougTheMapper - 20-9-2011 at 17:08

1. Name = "c4goesbang"
2. First post
3. Vinegar + baking soda
4. "Recipes" to make "Cures"

The best solution is to remove the trap and empty it into the nearest convenient receptacle. If the trap isn't removable, use a plunger or a drain snake. If the clog is in the middle of a long run, find a cleanout or install one if the situation is that bad. I really can't think of anything chemical that would work better than brute mechanical force, unless maybe you'd rather spend $50 in dodgy chemicals to keep your hands clean. Most traps come off by hand or with a screwdriver. If not, go spend $20 on a pipe wrench.

Other hilarious solutions I have just found using Google:

- Hot water
- Baking soda/hot water
- Washing soda/hot water
- 2fl. oz Lemon juice
- Vinegar/baking soda
- Saltwater
- Salt and vinegar
- Coca-cola
- Household ammonia
- Laundry bleach
- 3% hydrogen peroxide
- Rubbing alcohol, two types of mouthwash, goo-gone, and The Works (!)

I guess the most common method is to pour everything in sight down there and hope you don't inadvertently gas yourself. I guess there's always

- Call a plumber


-DTM

bbartlog - 21-9-2011 at 05:23

Agree with DTM, mechanical means are the way to go. Anything obdurate enough not to be dislodged by a plunger is going to take a long time to dissolve, even if you execute drain cleaner application perfectly and end up soaking the blockage in lye. Further, the usual course of events with chemical drain cleaners in my experience is
- apply cleaner
- dissolve 5% of clog (if lucky... abysmal failure is equally likely)
- drain cleaner now slowly drains, leaving most of clog intact
- slow-draining sink, toilet etc. now reverts to fully-clogged status within a few days

The use of H2SO4 for drain cleaner also seems weird to me. I've never seen it work and it seems quite dangerous - aside from the ability to dissolve you, it seems like it could lead to a steam explosion inside your pipes with just a little bad luck.

Bot0nist - 21-9-2011 at 08:16

I once had virgin sulfuric acid drain cleaner splash and sputter out of a clogged drain. I thought it was fully drained, bit I guess their was enough water ontop to the clog to boil violently. Was glad I had kitchen gloves on.

Wizzard - 21-9-2011 at 08:58

Sulfuric Acid drain cleaner makes clogged drains smell like burning hair. Not recommended.

I'd also reocmmend mechanical unclogging means.

Bot0nist - 21-9-2011 at 09:04

Yeah, the acid did nothing to the clog, and a carbon mess floated out of the drain when it was refilled with water. Very stinky. I even got a hint of smell of some sulfur compounds. Not hydrogen sulfide I hope. Very "farty" smelling.

[Edited on 21-9-2011 by Bot0nist]

fledarmus - 21-9-2011 at 09:22

Most drain cleaners I know of are strong bases, either potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide. If your clog is in a kitchen drain, it probably contains a substantial amount of triglycerides which can be lyophilized to glycerols and ionized fatty acids, which are much more water soluble. Once the fat is broken down, the rest of the clog may flow out with the water.

In the bathroom drains, most of the clogs are made of hair and other biopolymers. Peptide bonds in the proteins can be cleaved by exposure to strong aqueous bases, forming an amino acid soup which is also water soluble.

As bbartlog says, what usually happens is that once a small amount of the clog is dissolved, the water and all your expensive chemicals will wash down the drain and have no further effect on what is now only a "mostly" clogged pipe. Some companies have attempted to develop strong bases in thick slurries that will remain in contact with the clog for longer periods of time, with modest success.

symboom - 21-9-2011 at 14:29

lye <sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide> will work the best dissolving hair and other organic compounds
if you have metal pipes acids will damage the pipe.

AndersHoveland - 21-9-2011 at 22:37

When my garbage disposal drain clogged up, I thought it was a good idea to pour some bleach in it, then add some sodium bisulfate, and next a little 30% H2O2. This made plenty of gas! After waiting about two minutes, sodium carbonate was used to neutralise everything, and the drain was rinsed with plenty of water. You may find this all a little excessive.

Drano Aerosol Plunger was developed in the late 1960s, intended as a "safer" product that would be kinder to the environment. Ironically, it was basically just a can of CFC (Freon) propellant. :P Obviously, this was before all the concern about the ozone layer.

The Drackett company, used a cheaper propellant mixture in some of its other drain products: a blend of propane and butane! However, the propellant mix created a fire hazard. There was even an incident involving an explosion when one of its customers, who had kept a can of the old product long after it had been discontinued, used it in combination with one of the newer binary foaming drain cleaners, which utilized the reaction between hypochlorite and hydrogen peroxide to produce oxygen. The unfortunate customer apparently had been smoking a cigarette just prior to the accident. :o

http://www.thedrainclaw.com/page/228604203



[Edited on 22-9-2011 by AndersHoveland]

peach - 22-9-2011 at 02:37

If it's a sink drain, go straight to the trap - it's probably full of cotton buds, cocktail sticks and fluff anyway.

If it's a toilet, that's plunger territory for sure. Provided you get the rubber lip below the water and push hard and fast, it can shift some heavy duty blockages a long ways a way. Also applies for sinks if the block is beyond the trap.

The only time chemical drain cleaners start becoming a good idea is if it's full of grease and fat. Commercial kitchens will sometimes pour their waste oil from the fryers down the drains to avoid paying for disposal. It can then solidify as it cools down on the way to the sewer. Because they empty the oil on a daily basis, there can be huge lumps of it out in the sewer (bins of it).

For something like that, biological washing powder in the hottest water it'll stand can be extremely effective and safe.

If you need to bring out the big guns, pour a pack of caustic soda (lye) in there. In both this and the biological suggestion above, the key is to leave it for a few hours or all day to chew through the blockage.

I would suggest you avoid lye and sulphuric acid.

B&Q (Lowes / Home Depot in the UK) had to remove sulphuric based drain cleaners from the shelf after another customer poured the bottle into the drain then stood watching it. The concentrated acid boiled and sprayed back out into her face, permanently scarring her. There are many pictures on google of the results as quite a few women have had idiots purposefully through it in their face.

My brother works in a bar and spotted a bottle of sulphuric I had. He mentioned that he has to wear elbow length gloves and a face mask in work to use it on the toilets, the explanation for which is provided by the B&Q example.

AndersHoveland - 22-9-2011 at 12:07

Quote: Originally posted by peach  

in the UK...quite a few women have had idiots purposefully through it in their face.


You already know my views about this.
This type of unacceptable beheviour was non-existent three decades ago. I hope that potentially "dangerous" chemicals do not dissapear from the shelves in the UK merely because of the attrocious crimes coming specifically from some of the members within the muslim community.

But to be fair, attacks involving "vitriol" (sulfuric acid) gained a brief popularity among criminals during the Victorian age.
These incidences were sensationalised in the popular literature of the time. George Gissing's "The Nether World" (1889) and Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Ebb-Tide" (1894)both prominently featured scenes of vitriol being thrown at a character's face. In a Sherlock Holmes story, "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client", Baron Gruner got vitriol thrown in his face.

"Loss of Face: Vitriol Throwing, Blame and Stigma in England, 1840-1900. This paper investigates both sides of the blame/shame equation as revealed in the unusual crime of vitriol throwing, taking as its framework of analysis two apparently disparate areas of academic study: the crime of passion in fin-de-siècle France, and recent debates among legal scholars about the resurgence of shaming penalties. The paper will show that in England, those who disfigured loved ones with sulphuric acid generally claimed that they had been provoked by their victims; by the turn of the century this was phrased in terms of temporary insanity brought on by ill usage. Effectively, then, crimes of passion, such cases were frequently recognised as such by the courts, though this tended to result not in acquittal (as in France) but in a lesser sentence. The victims, in contrast, were publicly and permanently marked, thereby suffering an enduring form of shaming punishment carried out not by the state or society – which during the Victorian period largely succeeded in eliminating public humiliation practices – but by the individual, in a species of lynch justice."

peach - 22-9-2011 at 14:38

I know when this is done purposefully, it does have some sort of additional appeal to Muslims, but the B&Q instance was another accident with it.
Quote:
Sheila said: “It was a terrible nightmare. One second it was bubbling, then the next second it had exploded like a bomb.

“My immediate thought was to protect my eyes. All I can remember is the terrible burning and the horrendous fumes.

“It was horrific but I knew I had to keep splashing my face with water all the way to the hospital and not to put my hands to my face because that would burn them too. The doctors told me I had saved my face."


Quote:
Rodney Donmall, head chemist for Extreme Green Limited, told the Daily Echo they were helping Trading Standards with their investigations but insists if used correctly Dr Drain is safe and carries sufficient warnings.

He added: “It clearly states that this product will react violently if it is in contact with other products and I would suspect there was something else down her drain for it to react in such a way.

“Incidents like this are very rare.”


I think this is an example of a.) not reading the instructions, but also b.) so much stuff now has a horrifying, nondescript warning on it that the warnings have become the norm and so may be getting ignored.

I was out in a department store today and saw a 3D TV. Before it would switch on, it gave a warning about taking a break if I developed headaches or dizziness. I think even if this lady had seen the warning, she may have simply thought it was more legal small print. It is a very energetic thing to be on the shelves in public stores in the same bottles as washing up liquid. It should be in a distinctive bottle and behind the counter, where kids can't reach up and mess with the bottles. How many people, honestly, ever read the backs of the washing up bottles? <--- okay, this is a chemistry forum, so quite a few of you, like me, probably sit in the bath reading them, but others will have zero interest.

B&Q still sell caustic soda I believe. Or least a concentrated solution of it that's 4 times more than the packs of flakes.

It could be that she'd already put caustic in there. I suspect she may have, as I'd imagine even concentrated sulphuric would have a hard time spraying out that quickly and high up on it's own.

It is quite remarkable that the concentrated caustic and concentrated sulphuric are sat next to each other on the shelf and advertised as the most powerful things for unblocking drains. Imagine the draw they will create from the public to grab a bottle of each and pour them in. And that is going to go bat shit crazy when they mix!

There is a drive in the UK, and Europe, to remove pure chemicals from the shelves, and the reliance the industry has on harsh, over the top methods, because the public can't be expected to understand how dangerous what they're buying might be. This is part of a new initiative called REACH. I'm not sure how it'll apply to things like eBay.

The chemicals are not being put under license conditions, they are simply being moved away from the general public's frequent shopping haunts. Specifically, the sellers have to 'know their customers' and be more sure that they are aware of the danger when buying something.

There is of coarse the old argument that they should know what they're buying, but it's not a very good argument. E.g. I start selling my own brand of super headache cure paracetamol, and put 4g in each dose rather than 1, and tell the victims they should have read that small black scribble on the pack more carefully. That's not a very fair or realistic thing to do. It's well accepted paper and moral law that a manufacturer who builds a car has to check the brakes actually work before selling it, and someone who makes a toaster has to check it won't fry their customers; there are intimate details they have to go into to be acting in a competent manner as a seller. The same applies to all products, and the sulphuric drain cleaner is an example of where it is pushing the limit on what to expect the public to be aware of.




[Edited on 22-9-2011 by peach]

AndersHoveland - 22-9-2011 at 15:56

When I was much younger, I liked mixing all the different cleaning chemicals down the drain to see what would happen.