How to Unblock A Drain

Yes, Vinegar and Baking Soda (Bicarbonate of Soda). It is that easy, cheap and safe.

Remove as much water as you can from the offending sink.

Pack your drain with as much Baking Soda as possible. You should be able to get 1/2 - 1 cup in and around it. Leave it there for about 10 minutes. Go back and see if you can get any more baking soda in the drain. Usually it's dropped down a bit and you can pack a bit more in. Then pour vinegar over the Baking Soda. It will start to fizz and react. Keep pouring the vinegar over the drain until all the baking soda has disappeared and it is no longer reacting. It usually takes about 1/2 a litre, maybe more depending on how much baking soda you managed to get in.

All done. You can run cold water down the drain to check that it's working and wash down all the baking soda and vinegar. It should be completely clear now. Once, I had to do it twice for it to work but our house is over a hundred years old and the drains aren't in very good shape.

I remember making a Baking Soda and Vinegar volcano is science class many years ago. The reason the two products react together is simply that Baking Soda is an alkali which reacts with the acid in the Vinegar to neutralise the two chemicals.

More technically, Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Soda) (chemical NaHCO3) combines with the dilute Acetic Acid in vinegar, (chemical CH3COOH) to form Sodium Acetate, Water and Carbon Dioxide gas. The gas is released in the form of small bubbles.

Don't ask me how it technically cleans and clears drains though - it just does!

I regularly clean my stainless steel sink and bench with baking soda. I put spread about half a cup of baking soda in the bottom of the sink and start scrubbing it in and up the sides of the sink. Sometimes I walk away and do something else for 10 minutes and let it sit there.

To clean it away I pour about a cup of vinegar over it and it fizzes away and washes down the drain. I then rinse the whole area with cold water.

I find that this makes my stainless steel sink shine like no other cleaning produce can as well as gives the drain a good preventative clean at the same time.

If a lot of oil goes down your kitchen sink an free, easy and chemical-free way to prevent it building up is with hot water. When you boil your kettle to make a cup of tea or coffee pour the remaining hot water down your kitchen sink to help break down any oil that's gone down the drain.