Earth Friendly Way to Clean Drains

By

Amandablue

Baking soda and vinegar work great for cleaning drains. Let it sit 5 to 10 minutes, then flush with very hot water. I keep a kettle on our wood stove in winter, so I always have extra hot water. I flush the drains once a week, and I don't need to use any baking soda and vinegar.

By Dawn (Guest Post)

That works really well but it takes some time. Be sure to pour boiling water down the sink a few times afterwards.

By Penny (Guest Post)

Take it one step further and run your vinegar (slightly diluted) through your coffee maker first then pour it down the drain, the vinegar works double duty cleaning the scum and build up from your coffee pot. Be sure to run a few cycles of clean water through your pot after using the vinegar, and again, the hot water does wonders for your drains!

By

Grandma Margie

I believe you also need to follow the vinegar with very hot water. This is what I have always done and never have had a problem.

By

azDana

You may want to do a google search on this because I just read that it is very harmful to pipes to pour baking soda down the drain.

Editor's Note: I've used this method for years and it's never clogged my pipes but the important thing is to keep pouring vinegar down until the baking soda stops fizzing. You can use a lot less baking soda than vinegar. You can actually hear it working deep down in the pipes. Where people run into trouble, they put in way too much baking soda. A few tablespoons is plenty. Then when you think the fizzing is done, run hot water down the drain. If you fear you've used too much baking soda, just keep pouring down the vinegar. It reacts with it and dissolves it.