Tuesday 24 January 2012

Green Ways to Unblock Drains

I posted recently about Yorkshire Water's Doing the Dirty Campaign. Just a reminder that there's still time to enter the giveaway for kits to make fat cakes for your garden birds! I'll be choosing winners on Thursday!

If you are very careful with your waste, you may still end up with blocked drains or a blocked toilet. There are a number of environmentally friendly ways that you can fix the problem yourself including: using a plunger or a mop (scroll down a bit to More Top Tips) to unblock a toilet or using vinegar or baking soda (or a mixture of both) to unblock sinks or toilets. Any of these methods can work in clearing minor bockages and save you the expense of calling out a plumber. If they don't work though, there may be a more major problem with your piping and then you should call out a professional!

As ever, text in red contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

4 comments:

Ms Sparrow said...

A pot of boiling water will sometimes do the trick, as well.

Here in the state of Minnesota (the land of 10,000 lakes) we are blessed with a large variety of water birds.
In fact, the Common Loon (gavidae gavidae) is our state bird. Many birds of all kinds come here to breed in the spring. But, then there are the little English sparrows who were transplanted to the US and never learned how to migrate. They just sit and suffer through the winter.

Gabrielle Bryden said...

Thanks for the tips - bicarb and vinegar is always good (and fun to watch it bubble up and fizz) - sometimes roots will block a drain and than you do need the professionals.

RG said...

If they just woulda made all plumbing pipes about half again as wide there would be a lot less problems! I bet a man designed them ... (BL made me say that last part there.)

Larry Kollar said...

Ah, Ms. Sparrow already mentioned the boiling water, I see. You'd blogged a few days ago about not pouring grease down the sink — that's how we fixed it when I made that mistake a couple decades back.

Here in the southeast US, there's a humorous "advice for people moving south" sheet. The first item on the list is "Save your bacon grease. You'll be told what to do with it later." (usually it flavors green beans) There are also several species of pine here that produce large cones; I've seen them used for bird feeders (dip in suet, roll in seeds, hang in tree).