Unclog a drain

Written by on November 14, 2008 in Cleaning, Penny Pinching - 1 Comment


Our upstairs bathroom sink drain has been slower than molasses forever! I blame it on the builders whom built the house. In my mind they did not put enough of a slant on the drain pipe so that the drain will empty properly. But much to my chagrin it was just clogged.

I started my using tweezers to pull hair and gunk out from the open drain. I was quite disgusted with this step. Next I dumped about 1/4 cup of salt down the drain. I did have to kind of shove it in with my fingers. Next I poured about a 1/2 cup of baking soda down the drain. I did have to do more shoving of the baking soda down the drain. Next came the fun part. I poured about 2 cups of white vingar down the drain. I did this slowly. Then I plugged the drain and took a shower.

After my 15-20 minute shower I ran hot water down the sink drain. The sink now drains much better than it did before.

The salt acted as an aggregate in the pipes and the baking soda/vinegar mixture had a chemical reaction acting as a vehicle to agitate the salt.

  • Anonymous

    I just un-bend a wire hanger and dig the hair out of the drain! (the hook part) it works great!