My bathroom sink had been draining slowing for a while and it was finally time to figure it out. I found a recipe on ThriftyFun for homemade Drano, using salt, baking soda, vinegar and water. It didn't go quite as planned but we were successful in the end.
Link: Homemade Drano
Steps:
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Good for you!!! I love the last step. I do this to our sink quite often especially in the bathroom my husband uses for shaving. Whenever I see any of those little tiny gnats or the air vent smells sour, I know it's time to clean the drains.
Feels great to have it drain properly and it is so much cleaner! It was getting very bad at the end but I didn't want to cause a bigger problem right at the holidays.
I need to do some research on painting sinks. It's so chipped, it never really looks clean. I'm thinking of doing a deep blue, with a glittery Milky Way swirling toward the center of the sink. Fingers crossed!
Sink looks fine to me. Looks like you may have some calcium buildup on it. If so, white vinegar may remove it.
I would take some bath cloths and wet them good with white vinegar and lay them on the places where calcium has hardened. The white vinegar will soften the calcium and make it easy to remove. It would need to soak for about 8 hours so overnight should do it.
I'll try that but I think the yellow build up is where the porcelain finish has been worn away. It's dull even when I get it clean. It probably bothers me more than anyone else. My teenagers certainly don't care how clean it is. :)
LOL, I know what you mean. I think I would just wait until they grow up and get out on their own.
If you paint it, post a picture. Sounds like it would be beautiful.
They sell porcelain and sink restoration kits in hardware stores and Amazon. Many whiten as well as fill in cracks. You might also try hydrogen peroxide, the same stuff they use to whiten teeth. Do a spot check first to make sure wherever chemical you use won't damage the surface.
Before you paint the sink, try cleaning it with Comet cleanser. It has bleach so if anything will get your sink white, Comet will. Plus its usually around $1, so a great thing to try. I use it to clean out my kitchen sinks, and bathtub too.
I definitely will!
Wow that was a lot of gunk! Glad you were able to clear your clogged sink.
For the shower and tub, we use hair catcher stopper. Then when it gets full or the water starts to drain slowly we'll clean the drain. :)
Wow that was a serious clog! I usually do only baking soda and vinegar in kitchen, bathroom monthly. Always pour any boiled water down the sink while it is still hot. Works v. well. Hair requires a little muscle. Once a month, I use a small device, do not remember what it is called, it is a narrow wire with small stiff brush bristles at the end. Down it goes into tub drain as well as bathroom sink. Picks up ALL the hair. You can get this little device at Home Depot for under $15.00.
I think it is called a snake. I was going to go to the hardware store to buy one before my husband showed me how easy it is to remove the P trap.
I have one of those things. Regardless, hair gets down the drain and I have to snake about every two years. We have double sinks and they both have to be taken apart at the P-trap. I dread it because all the stuff in both vanities must be removed.
i love this,worked so good,i'm keeping this for future clogs.saved on buying drain clogger.any more great ideas send them my way,they are very helpful
If it's a hair clog, the salt/baking soda/vinegar solution won't do much since none of those ingredients dissolve proteins, which is the main constituent of hair. Drano excels at doing that. You can demonstrate this by simply making this solution and then putting some hair in it. Wait 24 hours and you'll see that nothing has happened to the hair. Then try it with Drano and you'll see that the hairs have dissolved.
What this can mildly do is dissolve a little soap that may be binding the hairs. And I stress little. It probably won't penetrate more than 1/2", even with boiling water -- and it certainly won't get through anything as dense as the hair mass shown in this photo.
Would this solution work as maintenance? Maybe, but again, only mildly. The problem is that the solution is not thick enough to coat the sides of the pipe for any significant amount of time to dissolve soap scum (and again, it has no effect on hair). That's why the best drain cleaners are a thick gel. Filling the tub or basin with boiling water and then running the steaming water down the drain might help. While that won't dissolve hairs, it should dissolve soap.
The best measures are preventive. Use liquid soap (which never hardens) instead of bar soap (which hardens when the water gets cold). And most of all, use a drain filter to prevent hair from entering the drain. They cost $1 at the Dollar Store. Or make your own by removing the drain cover then covering it with panty hose before screwing the drain cover over it, keeping the fabric in place. This only works on tubs and showers since sinks don't have unscrewable drain covers.
"saved on buying drain clogger"
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Why would spend money on buying drain clogger? Most people wouldn't want their drains clogged. But if you do want to clog your drains, you can do it free. Just dump some hair or vegetable peels down your drain and then pour in some hot animal fat. Once cool, the fat will congeal, adhering the hair or peels to the pipe, clogging the drain. No need to waste money on drain cloggers.
It sounds like you have a lot of knowledge in this area so I would like to ask for your comments on using something like this.
www.amazon.com/
I wanted to avoid Drano if possible because I have read that it can be very damaging on pipes and discouraged by plumbers.
I saw the original "Homemade Drano" article and figured I would give it a try and report the results back. I was pretty happy at how much came out. The pictures don't really show it but you could see how it bubbled up and cleaned out the top, cleared, then cleaned out more from deeper in the pipe. Until, of course, the hair stuck to the sides slipped down and clogged the whole thing. :)
I have a great recipe for unclogging sinks. Put one cup baking soda in drain, heat two cups vinegar, pour vinegar over the baking soda, it will foam up, let it sit for fifteen minutes. Then flush with hot water. It works like a charm.
That's basically what I did, except I used cold vinegar and boiling water. It worked good until the hair loosened from the sides and then it was clogged entirely.
I think the key is to do it regularly so that the build up isn't too great.
Yes. This works well, Ive done it.
I also regularly use a Zip-It. The serrated plastic tool pulls up stuck hair in drains. I have the off-brand type also, both work well. They say they are disposable, but I clean it and reuse it.
Also,, remember there is a difference between a toilet plunger and a drain plunger.
I didn't have a drain plunger so I used the regular toilet plunger. Worked in a pinch.
I will have to check out the zip-it. Since I wrote this initial article, we had a worse clog due to the kids not realizing that you can't wash kitty litter down the drain. We had to disconnect a piece of the pipe in our crawlspace to get the solid clog removed.
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