Use This Unexpected Medicine Cabinet Staple To Unclog Your Drains In A Pinch

A clogged drain is one of the unfortunate facts of homeownership. Sooner or later, something is going to build up in your pipes and cause an obstruction. Before you know it, you're stuck with an unusable drain and need to either call a plumber or grab a can of Drano – a harsh chemical cleaner that could possibly damage pipes or harm the environment. Or, do you? Before you go through the hassle and expense of either of those options, check your medicine cabinet for one common staple: Alka Seltzer. Not only can this medicine calm stomach upset, it can also work in a pinch to unclog your drains.

Alka Seltzer is primarily sodium bicarbonate, more commonly known as baking soda, and works well to neutralize stomach acids. But if you want it to neutralize your clogged drain, then you'll need to follow it up with some vinegar. Baking soda and vinegar mix together to create a chemical reaction that packs quite a cleaning punch. As these two are on opposite ends of the pH scale, when they are combined they create a bubbling carbonic acid. Both baking soda and vinegar's own properties, plus the fizzing they create once combined, work to break up organic material (thanks, baking soda), hard water buildups (that'd be vinegar's handiwork), and then lift them from the surface of your pipes (the fizzing carbonic acid finishing things up!).

Cleaning clogged drains may one of the ways you may never have thought to use baking soda, but Alka Seltzer makes it too easy to pass up. To make this trick work, you'll want to drop a few tabs of Alka Seltzer down the offending drain, then pour in one cup of vinegar directly after. Let that sit for two minutes before flushing it all with a heavy stream of hot water.

Before you start using this hack to solve all your plumbing needs, it's important to know that cleaning a drain with baking soda-based Alka Seltzer and vinegar will only work on moderately clogged pipes. If you have a bigger, tougher, clog you probably will need to call a plumber to bust out the big guns — or keep a pipe snake on hand. You'll also want to keep in mind that the Alka Seltzer and vinegar mix will only have a short burst of efficacy. If baking soda and vinegar are left together for too long their mixture fizzes out and becomes a neutral solution, rendering both items' cleaning powers null and void. Caveats aside, this can still be a helpful, handy hack next time you come up against a clogged drain!