"TomR" wrote in :

I am going to meet with a friend of mine in a couple of hours to see
if I can help him with a clogged/slow drain issue. I haven't seen it
yet, but so far, he seems to be saying that it is mostly a bathtub
(and maybe a sink in the same bathroom) that has a slow drain problem.
I think he said he tried to unclog it before but had some problems
with it, and he wants to know if by looking at it if I could figure
out how to correct the problem.

Of course, we'll be doing the routine stuff -- using a plunger, a
snake, one of those plastic hair-cleaning gadgets, maybe Liquid
Plumber, etc.

But, I was wondering if anyone has ever tried using acid -- probably
not something too strong, but maybe diluted acid or whatever. I know
about keeping acid off of porcelain, and I know about adding
acid-to-water and not water-to-acid from chemistry classes and past
experience. And, since it is someone else's house, I don't want to
mess up their drain lines with too much or too strong of acid.

Any thoughts or experiences on the acid idea and any specific
suggestions would be appreciated.

Again, I am going there in a couple of hours, but I'll check here
beforehand just in case anyone gets to respond before then.

Also, I may just pass on the whole acid idea unless someone here has
any suggestions that we may want to try.

I have a bathtub drain that is slow on occasion. Snaking it doesn't help
a bit. Drano is not all that effective either. The system has a long
horizontal part to the drain that collects silt and stuff. Theonly thing
I have found to really work is plugging the tub's and sink's overflow
openings and then to use a toilet plunger really hard, with hot water
running. It loosens all the sludge and rinses it down the drain.


In a bathtub system, you deal with hair and other proteinaceous stuff.
While alkali (DRano etc) can dissolve this, acid will NOT, unless you
really heat it up. So the acid is standing in the pipe and eating it
(metal, PVC excepted of course) as Duesenburg found out. Of course
you're free to test this yourself.
--
Best regards
Han
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