Slow or blocked drains are common issues every homeowner experiences with their home’s plumbing from time to time. Due to how often we use them and what we use them for, toilet, bathroom, and kitchen drains are always at risk of getting blocked.
When this happens, it is normal that you will want to cut costs by trying to fix the problem yourself. Like most homeowners, says DRP Management, you will reach for a drain snake, plunger, chemical drain cleaner, vinegar, or baking soda, each time your drains show signs of trouble.
But do DIY drain cleaning solutions work? Are you really saving money when you use them? What is their long-term impact on the health of your drains? Is there a right time to use DIY drain cleaning methods, and what are their limitations? This post answers those questions.
Common DIY drain cleaning methods and why they can be a bad idea
The most common do-it-yourself methods for clearing clogs and blockages from your drains are:
- Handheld drain snakes
- Plungers
- Baking soda, vinegar, salt, and boiling water
- Chemical drain cleaners
Chemical drain cleaners are easily the worst things you can pour into your drains. While they may clear your drains, they do so at a huge cost. Chemical drain cleaners have acids in them. These acids do not discriminate between the material blocking the pipe and the pipe itself.
Chemical drain cleaners not only shorten the lifespan of your pipes, but they also harm the environment. The acids in chemical drain cleaners will not only dissolve the clogs inside your drain but corrode your pipes and eventually find their way into the soil, which will leach into groundwater.
The other DIY drain cleaning methods in this list are only suitable for removing clogs close to the drain opening. If the material blocking your drainpipe is further inside the pipe, removing it with the above drain cleaning methods is often impossible.
Baking soda, plungers, salt, vinegar, and hot water are only useful when you have an emergency. Because they do not actually remove the material blocking the pipe but merely push it further down the pipe, they cannot be used as a long-term fix.
But if you do not understand these DIY drain cleaning methods and use them as your go-to solution for drain issues, you can expect the following problems.
The trouble with DIY drain cleaning
Health and environmental issues
In addition to the harm they do to your drainpipes, chemical drain cleaners are also dangerous to your health. The toxic compounds inside drain cleaners linger in the air after the cleaner is flushed into the drain. They may eventually end up inside the lungs and stomachs of humans and pets.
Furthermore, using chemical drain cleaners is almost the same as putting poison in your drinking water. These harmful substances flow from your drain into the city sewer system and finally into the water bodies that feed the natural systems where we get our drinking water.
DIY solutions ignore the root cause
When you hire a local plumber to unclog drains in your home, that plumber adopts a holistic approach, including the entire plumbing system and how you use them.
This ensures that whatever solutions they employ for the issues will have a lasting effect. Conversely, DIY drain cleaning solutions are temporary fixes that do not address your drain problem’s underlying cause.
Your drain problems never go away
DIY drain cleaning methods only worsen the issues with your drains. Unlike when you use a professional plumber, DIY drain cleaning does not highlight the things you are doing that may hurt your drains. They also don’t altogether remove the offensive materials inside the drains. The result is that those drain problems only worsen with time until they do massive damage that will cost a ton of money to fix.
You can’t do preventive maintenance with DIY drain cleaning
With DIY drain cleaning, you must wait until there is an issue with your drains before you take action. These solutions lock you into a reactive mindset where you are always one step behind the problems with your plumbing.
A professional plumber, on the other hand, can help you create a preventive maintenance program via a sewer rodding service, that will let you avoid major issues with your drains, prolong the life of your plumbing and help you save money in the long run. You should also think about having your drains and sewer lines hydro jetted every 5-6 years for a full and thorough cleaning.
Save money and time
Hiring a professional plumber to solve the issues with your plumbing can help you save time and money. A professional plumber will find and solve those issues in a fraction of the time it takes you to find them.
Furthermore, when selling your home, the fact that your plumbing is managed by a professional makes much difference. Buyers have more confidence when the systems are under the care of an expert, and they are often willing to pay you more for the peace of mind that comes with that knowledge.