When your sink or bathtub has a clog, what’s your first instinct? If you are like the average homeowner, it’s likely to go get some store-bought chemical cleaner to use as a tool to eliminate the blockage. Products such as this are extremely popular, and correctly advertised as a “quick and inexpensive” way to relieve your clogged sink, shower, or bathtub.

However, our professional plumbers recommend that you not use them. Why is that, you ask? These chemical mixtures have a variety of severe side-effects that can actually hurt your plumbing, the people in your home, and the environment. Keep reading to learn about why we discourage store-bought drain cleaner.

You may pour chemical cleaner down your drain and discover that it effectively breaks through the clog of hair or soap that is stuck. However, it still leaves most of what caused the clog inside the drain, making it easy for the clog to build up again. Aside from that, fixing a clog in your sink can just force the clog down your plumbing system, and create a problem elsewhere, such as your bathtub.

These acidic drain cleaners can actually damage your plumbing. Most of them contain lye and sulfuric acid, which stays inside the drain even after you’ve rinsed it. Over time, this can cause corrosion and break down your pipes. These ingredients also make chemical drain cleaners very toxic to children or pets that may get ahold of them, not to mention you as you’re using the product.

Because of how thick liquid drain cleaners are, after use the bottles are never completely empty. So when they end up in landfills, the toxins inside them seep into the ground, and eventually groundwater. This is one way that unhealthy chemicals get into drinking water.

In order to effectively clear your plumbing system, be sure to contact the professionals at Brooks Plumbing Co. for professional DuPont, WA drain cleaning services!

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