Bio-friendly drain cleaner

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By Collin Cunningham
Posted 2009/06/11 @ 5:20 am
Category Energy

No – it’s not jello! Senseless_ shares his recipe for a homemade drain cleaner -

Cooking up a pot of natural drain cleaner to eat away build up in one of our rentals while it/s empty.
7x 16 ounce beers, 5 pounds of sugar, 3 packs of baking yeast and a box of Rid Ex. I’ll let it culture a day or two then pour it down the furthest drain from the septic tank and four days of not running water the gunk will get mostly eaten away before I run a snake through it and no caustic chemicals to eat my pipes…

Seems like a nice alternative to commercial chemicals – anyone have luck using other ingredients?

BY Collin Cunningham

Born, drew a lot, made video, made music on 4-track, then computer, more songwriting, met future wife, went to art school for video major, made websites, toured in a band, worked as web media tech, discovered electronics, taught myself electronics, blogged about DIY electronics, made web videos about electronics and made music for them … and I still do!

In the Maker Shed

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

Make Subscription

Telegraph Decoder Kit by Spikenzie Labs

Arduino Uno Rev 3 (Make SMD Version)

10 Responses to Bio-friendly drain cleaner

Porse on June 11th, 2009 at 5:47 am said:

I’m having trouble locating a 16oz bear.

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ellisgl.myopenid.com on June 11th, 2009 at 5:54 am said:

I think they drank the drain cleaner before posting..

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RocketGuy on June 11th, 2009 at 6:36 am said:

Even just 16oz bears, those gotta be particularly endangered since I’ve never seen them.

Seriously, I tried the vinegar and baking soda trick, only to have it stop the sink entirely. I think what happened was that it loosened up a bunch of stuff that then hit the 40 years of corrosion and muck further down and created a dam. I love my old house, really…

Not very makerish, but the garden hose attachment you get for a few bucks at home despot or similar works very well. It expands to seal, then uses the water pressure to blast the gunk away. YMMV with a septic system though, being urban I know nothing about their needs.

In the end I took the pipes apart and scraped them out with a snake, then blasted them with the garden hose to make sure I got everything. For some reason the wife was incredibly proud of me, so gross time well spent.

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- RocketGuy on June 11th, 2009 at 6:40 am said:
  
  I snaked it first due to not knowing about the hose device at the time.
  
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- Collin Cunningham on June 11th, 2009 at 6:41 am said:
  
  thnx for the tip – I’d prolly just have gone straight for the vinegar+baking soda combo if you hadn’t mentioned the complications
  
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Andra on June 11th, 2009 at 6:44 am said:

Is Rid-X really “bio-friendly”? How do they acquire and manufacture the ingredients? I have had some luck with the old baking soda-vinegar-boiling water combo. I know for certain that’s bio-friendly.

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Wilson! on June 11th, 2009 at 11:34 am said:

After LOLing at the comments above, I followed the link to the flickr page and then beyond, and found he mentioned a 12 pack of _beer_ – not Bears. I’d rather buy dran-o for the pipes and drink the beer myself…

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- Becky Stern on June 11th, 2009 at 8:32 pm said:
  
  I dunno, it might just be the perfect use for that case of canned Tecate that somebody left at your party… no one said it had to be /good/ beer! =]
  
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Chris on June 11th, 2009 at 12:19 pm said:

I found this tip ages ago on a random plumbing tips website. Just boil up a big pot of water. Once it’s at a rolling boil, carry it carefully to the drain and pour. Be careful of the steam as it can still burn you. If it’s just a slow drain, try not to pour faster than the drain can handle at first.

This combined with snaking works almost every time.

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Anonymous on August 16th, 2009 at 3:48 pm said:

boiling soapy water is a great way to clear a kitchen drain because it’s usually grease that causes the problem. Bathroom basins get the same treatment – toothpaste, make up, and hair gunk up the lines.
a mechanical snake is the only thing that’ll unclog a bathtub/shower drain as they are usually stopped by hair and soap. caustics only make the job dangerous.

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