How to Unclog Drains With Salt
When you’ve got a clogged drain at your home, you may immediately want to reach for a nearby plunger or automatically assume you’ll need to call in a plumber to get the drain flowing once again. But believe it or not, what may be able to unclog your drain could be in your kitchen cabinets. Specifically, such items as salt, baking soda, vinegar, and even a pot or two of boiling water may perform what you would consider to be a plumbing miracle.
If you’re wondering if this can really happen, our drain cleaning experts here at Boss Plumbing are here to tell you everything you need to know about these homemade drain cleaners.
Does Salt Unblock Drains?
While it’s true that using salt to unclog your drain can be effective to some degree, it’s important that you remember it’s not going to be able to clear out stubborn clogs that are lodged deep within your pipes.
Generally, we here at Boss Plumbing believe using salt to unblock your drain will likely have little if any effect on solving your drain problems. Should you have a kitchen sink backing up from what you believe is a grease clog, salt may help in that it may be able to clear a small clog that has just started to form. If you decide to give this a try, always pour no more than one-half cup of salt down your drain, wait at least 30 minutes, then pour a pot of boiling water down the drain to see if it is clear.
Should you decide to try this, remember that if you have PVC pipes in your home, pouring pot after pot of boiling water down the drain may do more harm than good. Over time, the extremely hot water may in fact warp your pipes and cause them to start leaking. Should this occur, this may be a significant factor in terms of how much it will cost to repair your drain pipe and possibly other parts of your home’s plumbing system.
Can Table Salt or Epsom Salt Unclog Drains?
In our experiences with homemade drain cleaners, we here at Boss Plumbing have found that Epsom salt tends to produce better results than regular table salt. However, there are some things you should keep in mind before concocting your homemade drain cleaner.
First and foremost, salt itself in any form can be corrosive. Thus, if you have older pipes that are corroding with rust on the inside or outside, the salt may actually work to corrode your pipes at a quicker pace. If you want to give salt a try in your drain, we recommend trying Epsom salt. When mixed with water, Epsom salt and its ingredients that include magnesium, sulfur, and oxygen will produce a strong fizzle inside your drain. If your pipes contain basic grime or other biodegradable materials, this home remedy may do the trick, at least temporarily.
Does Salt Damage Pipes and Drains?
It is possible for salt to cause damage to pipes and drains, especially if they are older. If your home has older stainless-steel or cast-iron pipes that are showing visible signs of rust or corrosion, we recommend you not use salt as a drain cleaner.
Should your home have newer copper pipes that you assume won’t be damaged by salt, think again. Actually, copper pipes are much more prone to salt-related corrosion than cast-iron or steel pipes. If you attempt to use salt as a drain cleaner each time your copper pipes have a clog, it won’t be long until your pipes are literally crumbling away in your hands. Should this happen, you’ll not only need our Boss Plumbing drain cleaning services at your home, but also our other plumbing repair services we provide to residential customers here in Los Angeles and surrounding communities.
Salt Combos as DIY Drain Cleaners
Various types of salt combos used as DIY cleaners have certain pros and cons to consider before giving them a try.
Salt and Boiling Water
As we stated earlier, if you have a clogged drain in your tub or shower or perhaps your kitchen sink, salt and boiling water may scour away a minimal amount of the clog, but could also damage PVC pipes in the process.
Salt and Baking Soda
Salt and baking soda have long been looked at as arguably the most effective homemade drain cleaner you can use to unclog drains. However, while the salt may scrape away some of the gunk built up on the pipe’s inner walls and the baking soda will eliminate some of the odor coming from your drain, they will do little to get rid of a large or stubborn clog that has hardened.
Salt and Vinegar
When you mix salt and vinegar, don’t expect the salt to be much help in getting rid of a clog. The vinegar will foam quite a bit and may help slightly with odor control and ridding the drain of grease and other gunk, but more than likely you’ll still need to call on our Boss Plumbing technicians to use a drain auger or plumbing snake to get rid of the clog once and for all.
Benefits of Calling a Pro Plumber
When you’ve got a basement drain that’s clogged or think you may need a sewer pipe cleaned out, it’s usually best if you let a pro handle the job. Here at Boss Plumbing, we regularly encounter situations where a customer did not know how to properly use a drain auger and made a tough situation much worse and more costly to repair.
To rid drains in your home of stubborn clogs and to help prevent sewer backups in your basement or elsewhere, we recommend letting us use our state-of-the-art hydro-jetting service to clear pipes and drains. Since we have decades of experience handling these situations, we can use our experience, training, and equipment to get the job done right the first time, saving you money and giving you peace of mind.
Let Us Unclog Your Drains
Though it sounds simple enough, clearing a clogged drain can be much tougher than many homeowners expect. Rather than start something that will result in a problem that’s bigger than the one you’re already dealing with, call us today here at Boss Plumbing and let us put our plumbing services to work for you and your home. By doing so, you may be able to avoid needing sewer pipe repairs or other plumbing repairs that you weren’t anticipating.
