It’s not surprising that throughout your home life in Alberta’s capital city, you’ll eventually have to hire reliable Edmonton plumbers for help on leaky drains or broken pipes. The moment it becomes too frequent to be nothing more than a random occurrence, however, it might be time to ask yourself what’s causing the damage. Oftentimes, homeowners fail to recognize that the very chemicals they use to clean their drains are what’s damaging them.

Harmful Drain Chemicals

Conventional drain cleaners are typically made of synthetic chemicals, which are meant to destroy bacteria. Unfortunately, many of them also end up chipping away at your drainage system. Cleaners made of lye, sulfuric acid, and sodium hydroxide are particularly tough and potentially corrosive, and so you might be better off using some organic, environmentally-friendly materials.

Mixing Chemicals

What’s worse than pouring corrosive chemicals down the drain? Mixing chemicals not only puts your plumbing even more at risk, but since you can never be too sure of how two chemicals will react when put together (unless you’re a well-attuned chemist, probably), you might end up putting your life in danger, too.

Baking Soda Trick

A good organic drain cleaner that’s friendly to your plumbing as well as to the environment is baking soda, and here are some tips for using it from Healthychild.org:

“Mix 1 Cup Salt, 1 Cup Baking Soda, and 1/4 Cup cream of tartar in a bowl. Using 1/4 cup of the mixture at a time, pour it down the drain, followed by 2 cups of boiling water. Wait at least one minute before repeating. The boiling water changes the chemical composition of the ingredients and makes it strong enough to eat through grease and grime. This method may take few tries, but it often does the trick!”

Washing Soda Reinforcement

You can take this method a step further by pouring a cup of washing soda on the clogged drain just before you use the baking soda method above. Washing soda contains a high alkaline level (pH 11), so make sure that you don’t use it if you’ve already administered a commercial cleaner on your drain.

Make sure to use only non-toxic chemicals on it—after all, you want your drains unclogged and running smoothly to your sewage system, not all chewed up and spewing waste all over your house. Then again, it may probably be for the best if you rely instead on professional Edmonton or Spruce Grove plumbers for drain repairs. For sure, they’ll know just the right thing to do.