Without routine maintenance, active drains are clog-prone. No matter how careful you are, you’re constantly introducing greasy, tacky debris into your plumbing system. Buildups of soap scum, rendered fats, and body oils gradually decrease pipe interiors.
When these accumulations snag and retain hair or other organic materials, the movement of wastewater slows until it doesn’t move. If you have a blocked or slow-moving drain in your Las Vegas, NV home, you can attempt to clear it yourself or call a professional. Read on to find out how chemical drain cleaners stack up to professional interventions.
The Benefits and Drawbacks of Chemical Drain Cleaning
Available in most stores, chemical drain cleaners are heavier than water. Typically sold as thick, viscous liquids and coarse powders, these products sink through standing water until they encounter obstructions. Some chemical drain cleaners are corrosive and eat through organic materials indiscriminately. Others are caustic and generate debris-dissolving heat through chemical reactions.
Chemical Drain Cleaners Can Cause Serious Physical Injuries
Before using chemical drain cleaners, it’s important to understand how hazardous they are. These products don’t distinguish between trapped organic waste and living soft tissues. If they come in direct contact with your eyes or skin, you could sustain serious chemical burns. Even breathing many store-bought dangerous cleaners in is dangerous. Prolonged exposure to a chemical drain cleaner’s fumes can lead to significant and potentially permanent respiratory harm.
Chemical Drain Cleaners Don’t Always Work
Among the many drawbacks of store-bought drain cleaners is the fact that they don’t always work. They’re best for dissolving mild blockages caused by soap scum, body oils, grease, and hair. However, even these soft obstructions may be too dense or large for chemical drain cleaners to work with lasting results.
Chemical Drain Cleaners Take a Cumulative Toll on Pipes
When chemical drain cleaners don’t work, they stay trapped right at the site of clogs while maintaining all of their caustic and corrosive properties. This can spell disaster for many plumbing components, especially in aging plumbing systems. If they remain trapped for too long, they may eventually “eat” through pipes and create leaks or set the stage for full-on pipe failure.
Chemical Drain Cleaners Are Low in Cost and Easy to Access
In general, chemical drain cleaners aren’t pricey. They’re also easy to find and use. You can purchase these products at most home and hardware stores, grocery stores, and even many convenience stores. However, using them repeatedly could cost you a small fortune in plumbing damages over time.
The Pros and Cons of Professional Drain Cleaning
Having a professional clean your clogs is a much safer approach. Rather than blindly dumping chemicals down drains, plumbers start by identifying the locations, size, and composition of blockages. For serious clogs and multi-drain blockages, camera line inspections provide tremendous insight. Although professional drain cleaning is more expensive than using store-bought solutions, it’s unlikely to cause additional plumbing issues.
Get a Needs-Specific Drain Cleaning Treatment
With accurate diagnosis, plumbers can leverage the right drain cleaning techniques for individual circumstances and plumbing systems. We can break down or extract hard, solid items that have been dropped down into drains. We can also force dense buildups of organic waste through. Our plumbers leverage mechanical tools like drain augers and drain snakes for especially large or tough obstructions. With hydro-jetting, we can both eliminate clogs and leave pipe interiors pristine.
Hydro-jetting uses hot, high-pressure water to break down buildups of grease, soap scum, hair, sediment, and more. It pushes organic materials to and through sewer lines while scouring pipe interiors along the way. Hydrojetting gives waste and wastewater more room to move through and lowers the likelihood of future blockages.
Protect the Integrity of Your Pipes
When plumbers look for and leverage needs-specific solutions, they always consider the age and integrity of plumbing systems. Our plumbers don’t use caustic or corrosive cleaning agents, and we’re careful to avoid using mechanical tools or hydro-jetting services when they may lead to structural damage.
Address the Problem at Its Source
Professional drain cleaning restores full functionality to drains and their connected pipes. While a chemical drain cleaner might break down mild buildups of soap scum and hair, this doesn’t mean that the residual waste will clear your sewer line.
You Might Not Need a Professional Intervention
Calling a professional every time your drains move slowly or stop moving at all can prove costly. Fortunately, there are several ways to know when you need a plumber’s help. You should schedule professional drain cleaning if:
- You have multiple slow-moving or blocked drains
- Your drains smell bad
- Your drains make bubbling or gurgling sounds
- Water is backing up into your fixtures
Foul and pervasive drain odors are another sign that you need professional drain cleaning.
Professional Drain Cleaning Is Both Corrective and Preventative
With a longstanding commitment to providing consistently excellent workmanship, we proudly serve Las Vegas, NV and the surrounding cities. We offer exceptional drain repair, general plumbing, gas line, and leak detection services. We also provide water heaters, water filtration, and rerouting and repiping services. If you need professional drain cleaning in your home, give Loyalty Plumbing a call now for plumbing repair, too.
