The plumber who told me to stop using Drano was right after all

I had a slow drain in my kitchen sink and kept grabbing the blue bottle of Drano thinking it was the easy fix. Then I ran into Frank from Frank's Plumbing at the hardware store on Lomas and he told me that stuff eats away at the old cast iron pipes in these ABQ houses. I ignored him for a few months until the drain got completely clogged and I had to call him out. He pulled out a snake and showed me how the Drano had actually melted some of the pipe lining and made things worse. Ended up costing me $450 to replace a section of pipe that could have been a simple $75 snaking job. Has anyone else here learned the hard way that chemical drain cleaners are bad for these older homes?

2 comments

2 Comments

richardk265d ago

Went through the same thing with my bathroom sink in my 1940s place near Old Town. Used that liquid Drano for years thinking it was harmless until I noticed this weird white crust building up around the drain. Turns out the stuff was eating through the galvanized pipe from the inside. My plumber showed me a chunk of pipe that was almost paper thin in spots. Cost me a lot more than yours did because the leak spread to the subfloor before I caught it. Now I just use a drain snake once a month and pour boiling water down the sink. Works better and my pipes still look good.

barnes.shane5d ago

Wait, so that white crust stuff is actually a sign of the pipes getting eaten away? I always thought that was just like hard water deposits or something. I had a similar thing happen but not with Drano. I was using those enzyme drain cleaners you see at the grocery store thinking they were natural and safe. Turns out my plumber told me those things just sit in the trap and turn into a gel that actually traps more hair and gunk over time. I had to get my whole kitchen drain snaked and it cost me almost 300 bucks. Now I just yank out whatever I can with a zip tool every few weeks and flush with hot water. Seems like every chemical solution just makes a simple problem into a big expensive one in these old houses.