If you’ve got a backed-up drain in your house, you may not need to run to the store to buy a jug of expensive drain cleaner.
There’s actually a simple, do-it-yourself drain-clearing solution that was recently shared by The Spruce and is made of common goods you probably have access to right now. This solution uses only boiling water, baking soda and vinegar. That’s right, you’re basically going to create a baking soda volcano in your drain!
I like that this method uses inexpensive and easy-to-find items and isn’t complicated to do. It also happens that I have a bathroom sink that’s been draining slower and slower in recent months. Since a chemical drain cleaner didn’t do much to clear up the problem, I tried this chemical-free DIY treatment for myself.
Testing It Out
The first step involves boiling some water.
According to The Spruce, once you’ve got your boiling water, you’ll want to pour it down your problem drain.
Then, you add a 1/2 cup of baking soda, followed by a 1/2 cup of vinegar.
This mixture is going to cause an immediate reaction and will start bubbling back up into your sink, which is where your drain stopper comes in. If possible, quickly close the drain to keep the vinegar volcano force going down into the drain and not up into your sink (our sink stopper is tricky to remove so I left it in.)
Let the mixture sit in your drain for 10 minutes.
Then, flush it with hot water straight from your tap and see if your clog has cleared.
For me, the baking soda/vinegar/water treatment did speed up my drain. It also loosened a bunch of gunk that was stuck on my sink stopper. While it didn’t make the sink empty at a seamless rate, I can definitely see a difference and say that it worked more effectively than the store-bought solution.
If you’ve got a slow drain at your house, give this method a shot. Even if it doesn’t work, you’re only out a little bit of baking soda and vinegar!
This story originally appeared on Simplemost. Checkout Simplemost for additional stories.
