It’ll fizz as the acidic vinegar and basic baking soda neutralize each other. I don’t think that I’d call it very useful for unclogging things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_drain_cleaners
Chemical drain cleaners or openers are pure or mixtures of chemicals used to unclog drains that are blocked by hair, food, or other organic materials.
They may contain either strong acids (in liquid forms) or strong alkalis (in either solid or liquid forms).
You probably want either an acid or a base so that they react with whatever is clogging your drain, not both, where they’ll react with each other.
It works on small clogs if you fill the drain with soda and pour the vinegar in, you can get some of the debris dislodged from the volcano action…but its not eating through a solid fatburg
White vinegar is an acid and it will dissolve (albeit slowly) whatever is clogging the pipe without damaging the pipe itself in most cases. Baking soda doesn’t do shit except neutralize it; I guess you can “cut” the acidity if you mix a small portion of baking soda to the amount of vinegar you use.
You can also try dish soap or dishwasher rinse aid; those cut surface tension and can allow water to get through which can start moving stuff, but it’s useless if the pipe is filled already.
Your best bet is a drain snake. They make versions that attach to a drill and auto-feed with a hand trigger, so you can just put it into the pipe and keep it turning (which is the important part). Basically a long metal coil, like a cable, that will drill through whatever fatberg+hair you have stopping things up. Unscrew your P-trap over a bucket to catch any backed up water; or more ideally take off an AAV (air admittance valve, the little hat thing under the sink if you have one) and go straight down until your clog is obliterated and the water drains
You don’t even need the drill.
You can get a shitty hand snake from Amazon for 20 bucks and that will clear most things.
I’m a shit plumber though and the hand-cranked version took me hours to get into position. Had to call a real plumber and he got right in there with his big motorized one.
But yeah you’re correct, they both do the same thing; it just works better if you are spinning it while advancing it so that the bulb tip grabs onto the mess instead of just pushing it further down the pipe.
I was fighting potato peels though. Don’t put them in the garbage disposal. Lesson learned, I suppose. Also, fuck garbage disposals.
Yeah if you’re stuffing potato peels or coffee…
Usually I’m just dealing with some grease or hair and the hand one has always been enough.
If you have a battery hand drill the snakes that attach to those are worth the extra $30-$40 bucks.
~~It’s kinda corrosive I think, which can remove things that clog the sink. However, professionals have complained about this to me. I think they said, that if it doesn’t flush through, that after the reaction it will just add to stuff clogging your pipes. ~~ Others in this thread seem to have more solid info about this reaction.
Especially if the pipes are too thin, they can clog easier. If it’s a lot of fat that’s clogging it, slowly pouring hot water was recommended to us, because of course fat dissolves with heat.
At some point though we tried so many things, the buildup was just too much. These barbed twisty metal tube thingies weren’t long enough to reach the end of the pipe where all the build up happened.
Then we learned about a machine that’s basically just like these barbed twisty things, but with motor-powered rotation and extension/retraction. Also super long and some have a camera.
They are quite costly and we got a professional to bring and do it for us. But I was thinking, what a great way to make money! With that you should be able to clear pretty much any clogged sink.
There are some professionals who upload their work on youtube too :)
Also related, there are machines that work by suction to clear the sink. But unlike these motor-powered rotation things, they can fuck the plumbing, since it can be a lot of force.
These two things won’t do anything as they’ll simply neutralize each other.
One’s a base, the other an acid. Both mild. Even by itself vinegar would do somewhere between fuck and all to drain pipes, even less to whatever is clogging it.
Its the fizz, you can get minor debris moving with all the gas bubbles pushing through. I found the better was is dump baking soda down first then pour in the vinegar. Mentos and coke would probably work better lol
Maybe that’s what the professional complained about with using vinegar + soda. I’ll update my comment to give better info :)
I suspect i may have broken a glass and some shards may have found their way in
It’ll make a cool “volcano.”
It’s great at clearing ‘gunk’
Chemistry
