Clear Your Drains - 541
I'm a fan of Main Line Drain Cleaner which uses lye. I think lye is generally your best bet although most of your Liquid Plumbers use lye.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Instant-Power-128-oz-Main-Line-Cleaner-1801/100126446
I unfortunately spent a pretty large amount of money on clearing my drains and digging up my yard and installing some new drains before I learned about the Main Line drain cleaner which uses lye.
Monday 7-1
#king
872.996 SP
1,738 VP
I had a pipe that needed draining. I bought the most powerful stuff I could find. Didn't work. Pumper came by. He poured some stuff in there, it was actually smoking! In no time it had burned through whatever it was that had everything clogged up. I asked him what that was and were I could buy it. He told me it was a lot more powerful that the stuff you can buy in the stores, and is only sold to official plumbers because of "safety concerns. WTF!
I wonder if it was lye or an acid. Did you see sunlit's post? I guess she might have bought some pure lye but it might be illegal now.
I was really surprised he didn't caution people not to inhale the products that were steaming up, he cautioned they could cause harm but they can also kill you. This video brought back the last clog memory a few months ago. We have a one hundred foot snake and it generally dislodges whatever is stuck in there unless it happens to be stuck past one hundred feet. It's ninety feet from the main drain opening in the basement to the curb of the street, which typically is what the city maintains you are responsible for...that was up until the year after I bought my house they came through and during the process of separating the sewage line from the storm drains they moved the pipe down the center of the road which for whatever odd reason they put a ninety degree angle from the curb to the main drain which makes it impossible for a hand snake to push around that ninety degree curve but also it's incredibly hard to try and find a snake hand or power operated that goes past a hundred feet. Before I had a snake I use to just wait till late at night before everyone went to bed and pour a whole bottle of Red Devil Lye down the main drain, let it sit over night and that usually took care of it. Then a fellow on a blog site told me to be careful doing that as Lye is highly corrosive to pipes including the cast iron pipes running under the house so I went and bought the snake. This last clog just wasn't giving in so I figured it was past the ninety degree bend, I wasn't about to foot a three, four hundred dollar bill to have a professional do it so I decided I'd try the lye again. I couldn't find the Red Devil brand I usually buy so I brought another brand that said one hundred percent lye, I don't know exactly what was different about the contents in this lye, and having done this many times before so I just started dumping it down the drain like usual, all of a sudden there was a volcanic type eruption all the way to the basement ceiling...it totally freaked me out. Luckily though I have read stories of people who were asphyxiated after breathing in chemical vapors from such products after putting them in their clogged toilets, that's why they tell you not to dump product into a clogged toilet because urine has a lot of ammonia and it causes a chemical reaction. I immediately knew to grab something and cover my face while I ran for the basement door to open it. I went outside got my breath a minute then covered my face long enough to go turn on a hose I keep hooked up in my basement to see if that would quell the eruption, which it did. I ran out to get fans to help blow the vapors outdoors but I was still afraid with it being winter and not knowing how much could have spread through out the basement and into the furnace systems I had to wake my son up next door and tell them what happened and to be on the safe side to open windows and to air out the house. One of my future endeavors will be to go online looking for a snake (preferably power) that will go past a hundred feet, I know it will be costly but one use and it pays for itself. After all that did it unclog the drain?...yes, if you ask me that was a pretty powerful force whatever was in with that lye.
With a little bit of copying and pasting you could make some decent blog posts out of some of your comments. lol
I was surprised about the steaming from the acid. I'm guessing that steam "isn't too safe". lol
I really like the Mainline drain cleaner and have seen good reviews. Maybe the lye you bought was actually pure lye which sounds very very dangerous. Even the mainline drain cleaner is pretty dangerous. I use gloves when I use it.
I thought about that a few minutes after I replied to you, lol, I think I could have made a funny story out of something that wasn't so funny, after I wrote the comment and went back over it I was thinking he's going to tell me these comments of late are like reading a post... talk about ironic, lol.
This post has received a 33.47 % upvote from @boomerang.
You got a 49.08% upvote from @joeparys! Thank you for your support of our services. To continue your support, please follow and delegate Steem power to @joeparys for daily steem and steem dollar payouts!