What Is a good, safe Drain Cleaner?

Hey everyone, I’m curious about the pH level of drain cleaners. Are they acidic or alkaline? What is their typical pH range?

Also, how does the pH level affect their effectiveness in clearing clogs? Which type is safer and better for home use?

Looking forward to your insights. Thanks!

It depends on the brand and type of declogger.  It is either acid or base enough to damage flesh. Each make will have a safety data sheet available online with they chemicals they use and you can use it to determine if it's acid or alkaline

There are far less toxic ways to clean a cloged drain.  My preference is prevention, like keeping the little basket in the kitchen sink and not letting oil down the drain.  

Mechanical means like a zip tool for early clogs or a snake are cheaper in the long term and more effective at preventing future drains.

I like to try and prevent drain issues - the kitchen sink is the one that is most likely to clog. A little soda crystals every now and then helps to dissolve fats. I don't think you have them in the US; they are a gentler form of washing soda I think, just slightly basic. Alkaline materials tend to react with fats to make soaps.
If the drain actually blocks, you can try the bicarbonate and vinegar trick also famous in kiddies volcano demonstrations


source

I also use the method that is also used to make that volcano.  What fun we had with those as a kid.

My method involves putting baking soda aka bicarbonate of soda in the drain.  Then pour vinegar into the drain.  That mixture will foam up like that volcano.  Then flush the drain with very hot water.

I have never bought that commercial drain cleaner.

I was brought up to mechanically clean drains. If the sink gets clogged, get into the cupboard and take the u bend off. This may be more difficult with a garbage disposal, I don't know as I've never played with one.

Part of this may have had to do with how we did the washing up. Fats were allowed to cool and scraped into the food waste bin and we never used so much oil that we would pour it down the sink, it got dissolved into the washing up liquid. We did not ever push solid food down the sink!

This may not have been particularly permie, was the washing up liquid a detergent? But the general principle of 'if you don't want to clean it, don't make it dirty' might reduce how often it needs to be pulled apart to be cleaned.

Going pooless/ reducing how often you wash your hair may help with reducing clogging. As well as strainer baskets on the sink drains.

PS: bottle traps are wonderful.

When my drain isn't really clogged but also isn't draining as fast as it ought to, I first turn to a 2-gallon pot of boiling water, followed immediately by a long stream of hot tap water once the bolus of boiled water has dropped out of the drain. That renews the vigor of my drain 90% of the time. Probably I'm not as careful with grease as I ought to be, but if you're in the same situation, you might have luck with it.

You need to clarify what you mean by "safe".

Safe for the person handling it?
Safe for the longevity of the pipe work?
Safe for the biological systems downstream?

We live in a very hard water area. Toilets form hard and thick deposits of limescale in a matter of weeks. Our water has insanely high calcium carbonate levels. We choose to use strong hydrochloric acid to dissolve limescale. It needs care to handle safely for the user. But the end products once it has reacted with the limescale and been diluted with the water are benign - just calcium chloride and water with a marginally lower pH.

Michael, we have major mineral buildup, too.  Does high acid vinegar work?

To get mineral deposits off, after emptying the water out of the toilet, soak paper towel in 10% vinegar (kitchen vinegar is 5%), press onto the ceramic where the stains are, leave overnight, wipe off the deposits.

Then, after every flush, put 2 Tbsp 10% vinegar in the toilet water, and it really helps slow deposits reforming.  

Boiling water usually does the trick. I put a bit of laundry detergent in with it to help dissolve grease. If that isn't enough I put a cup of kitchen bleach down the drain and leave it overnight.

Most commercial products are either very strong bleach, or lye. You can also get strong acids. Just be sure not to mix the acids with the lye or bleach. One product at a time!

There are also enzyme cleaners. Only had to resort to those once, but it unblocked a bathtub drain that had been partially blocked for literally years. Main trick is to exactly follow the directions.

I would have to know your definition of "safe". Lye, the 100% lye kind,  is a very good drain cleaner. It is natural. I use it to make soap (hand soap, body soap, shampoo bars). Lye has been around since the dark ages of time. The only thing unsafe about it is the fact that it is caustic, meaning, don't get it on your skin, as there will be a reaction. In fact don't get it on your counters or floors either. Once it gets into contact with water, it gets very hot. It is the same reaction that happens when I make soap. It is perfectly safe though - it is not like a chemical that is harmful to the environment. So yes, it is unsafe to skin. But no, it will not hurt the environment. Hope this helps.

When I hear safe in the modern world, I think of it as, a five year old could use it unsupervised.

But safe is a moving target depending on life expirence and wastenwater management. What we pour down our drain has a massive influence on the life downstream.

Another useful tip for preventing cloged kitchen drains is to let the dishes cumulate.  Washing once the dishes reach a critical mass means more water in one go, which seems to flush away any build up better than trickle washing as we go along.

We notice this most when guests "help" with the washing up.  They clean with a massive amount of soap and small amount of water after each meal.  The drain clogs within three days.  Wheras our regular style of doing the washing up no more often than once a day and the drains flow well for about 6 years before I need to snake them.