Clean Your Drains With Baking Soda and Vinegar – Surprise!

crunched by Crunchy Betty on July 13, 2011
filed under Household

Remember when I was all, “You crazy kids. Don’t you ever use baking soda and vinegar together in cleaning. It’s just silly. Blah blah blah.” Won’t she ever stop being so dadgum bossy omigosh?

Well, here’s a surprise.

Like everything in life, cleaning with baking soda and vinegar comes with exceptions. And that exception is cleaning drains.

When you’re cleaning your drain, you want to see a little plop plop fizz fizz. You want something else to do the dirty work. Like baking soda avec vinegar. (That means scrubbing bubble monsters in French.)

How to Use Baking Soda and Vinegar TOGETHER to Get Great Cleaning Results

I failed to mention in my post yesterday the awesome power of baking soda and vinegar in drain cleaning.

The plan was to mention that today as some big surprise. (Surprise!)

Instead, some of you got all ahead of things and started telling the secrets. Thus, I share as a bit of a lag-behind. You people are so crunchy, I can’t even keep up with you.

Unclog Your Drain With Baking Soda and Vinegar

In my last apartment, we had a super finicky bathtub drain. Going one week between “maintenance cleaning outs” was enough to land me in ankle-deep water before I even had a chance to shave my legs.

I sadly say that this is not a way to unclog very troublesome drains. But it is a great way to keep on top of a slow-moving drain or after you’ve used an oil/sugar scrub (which I’ve noticed tends to increase the likelihood of future clogging).

Don’t even get me started, though, on how ecofriendly baking soda and vinegar drain cleaner is, compared to ~~Drano~~ ~~Liquid Plumr~~ anything you buy at the store. And with a little bit of extra elbow grease and a plunger, you can use them to unclog the toughest drains. It just takes a while.

But here’s how you do it the easy way (before your drain becomes a clog monster):

How to Unclog A Drain With Baking Soda and Vinegar

Pour a pot of boiling hot water down your drain.
Dump in about 1/2 c. baking soda. Let that sit for a few minutes.
Then, pour a mixture of 1 c. vinegar and 1. c very hot water down on top of the baking soda.
Cover with a drain plug (to keep the reaction down below the drain surface) if you have one and let it sit for 5-10 minutes.
Flush one more time with a pot of boiling water.

Why this works: The baking soda and hot water treatment will loosen up any grimy sludge that’s hanging out at the bottom of your drain, and the explosive chemical reaction with the vinegar will jolt it all loose. Then one final super hot-water rinse will make all the bad stuff go bye-bye.

Baking Soda and Vinegar Garbage Disposal Magic

Tossing citrus peels in your garbage disposal keeps it smelling like freshly poured sunshine, but every once in a while, when someone puts onions in there and leaves them when they’re not supposed to, you might need a little extra help.

This is where you utilize the baking soda and vinegar goodness, as well.

How to freshen and clean your garbage disposal with BS/V:

Start by running hot water through your garbage disposal for a minute.
Pour about 1/4 c. baking soda into the drain.
Flip the garbage disposal on for 2 seconds, just to whirl the baking soda inside, and then leave it alone for 10-15 minutes.
Follow with 1 c. of vinegar. Watch the bubbles erupt out of your drain. (Yay!)
Rinse through one last time with very hot water and run your garbage disposal for 5 seconds.

Why this works: The baking soda and hot water (left in to soak for 15-20 minutes) will deodorize your drain like nobody’s business. And the vinegar volcano on top of all that will help dislodge any stuck pieces of food in the crevices, thereby releasing any potential future stinkiness.

The Baking Soda/Vinegar Issue In a Nutshell

The hard and fast rule to remember when cleaning with baking soda and vinegar:

Don’t mix baking soda and vinegar together, store them, and then expect them to work. But DO harness their explosive chemical reaction when immediate fizzy bubbles are needed to do some deep, impossible-to-reach drain scrubbing.

And I think that concludes everything we need to know about working with alkaline baking soda and acidic vinegar in cleaning.

Class dismissed.

Can you think of any other times when cleaning with baking soda and vinegar together could be useful?

Also, I’m looking for good countertop cleaner recipes right now (I need to switch up and try something new here at home).

Got any you especially love?

Sock it to me.

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Jen

Yay! I think that explosions are a wonderful way to clean drains. Will your drain smell like vinegar, though?
- Julie
  
  Vinegar smell disappears as soon as you use the final hot water rinse. If you forget the rinse, the smell disappears within a couple hours.
- Page
  
  Ha! I just tweeted that I was going to blow up the sink. Seriously, though, it’s a mild reaction, and it works great.
http://vanessasmith.webs.com/ Vanessa

COMET! ;)

My counters usually don’t get so dirty that I need to clean them with anything more than some hot water, but my grandfather is a truck driver, so the molding around doorknobs in our house gets VERY greasy and grimy very quickly. A combination of vinegar, hot water, and Eucalyptus Oil actually gets it very nice and white again. I’m afraid the baking soda might be too abrasive for the wood though, but for laminate or stone/ceramic, it could be a good addition.
Lissa

I have to do this in my tub drain. As a question, is there any special cleaning/degriming power in it while the reaction is happening?

Recently I followed a tip that I found on here (somewhere, I don’t even remember) of making a cleaner with vinegar and orange peels. Expanded, it works out to: stick orange and lemon peels in a mason jar until they’re within an inch of the top (don’t pack them down too tightly). Cover them with vinegar, cap the jar, and let sit for two to four weeks. At that time, strain out the liquid from the peels and dilute with water and/or distilled vinegar (I used equal amounts of both) until the cleaner fills a quart squirt bottle. I’ve used this in the kitchen with my extremely sensitive mother and nothing bad happened, so I would call this safe to be used.

As an aside, we had a very bad ant problem a few years ago. Very bad. We controlled it by wiping down the counter with straight vinegar every time after we cleaned it.
- bigmillerfam
  
  Any chance that the orange/lemon peel solution would work as a fabric softner that would impart its delightful smell onto my clothes…and maybe stay there?? Sounds like it would smell delighful either way, and I LOVE the idea of using peels instead of sometimes price EO. Thanks for the tip!
  - Lissa
    
    Well, it doesn’t exactly smell like oranges. It’s not as bad as vinegar, but it is definitely not a smell I enjoy. And the orange oil (I’m assuming that’s what ends up in the vinegar, but I don’t really know) might be kind of corrosive on your clothes since every miracle commercial cleanser that claims to use it says it gets grease off. It might work as a spot stain remover as long as you don’t use it too often– no saying what it would do to the color.
    
    Your comment does make me think about the vanilla and peppermint extract recipes–if you did it with vodka, maybe? Whatever comes out would either way be cheaper and not as strong as EOs, I’m just not sure what it would be.
KarinSDCA

I make up counter sprays all the time. As soon as one person starts feeling under the weather, I whip up the “antiseptic spray”. As soon as we see the little brown marching critters, I whip up the “ant spray”. At other times, I just make a spray for the scent. All of the above are simply water and essential oils in a spray bottle. Spritz counters and floors and banisters and lightswitches and doorknobs and walls and and and… wipe with cloth rag. (I prefer t-shirt rags.)

My everyday kitchen counter cleaner is simply the dishwater (BioKleen dishwashing liquid in hot water) with the same dishcloth I washed dishes with. I let them air-dry after each use and, once dry, toss them in a load of laundry. One use dishcloths and I don’t do any more laundry than I did when I used sponges. My dishcloths are actually repurposed 100% cotton dish towels with a texture weave that I cut into 3 different sizes and serged (overlock stitch) the raw edges. I have since knitted a small dishcloth with cotton yarn and two small scrubbies where I used the same cotton yarn and loosely wrapped it with long strips of tulle. No more buying scrubbies for me. These work REALLY well!!!

My everyday bathroom counter cleaner is baking soda and a wet rag to scrub off any goo, then rinse with water. That’s the first step in cleaning our bathrooms. The last step is spritzing water/vinegar (60/40 mix) the mirrors and faucets and counters, then wiping with t-shirt rag. Makes ‘em shine and removes the last traces of baking soda and water splotches. Yes, the air smells like vinegar for a few minutes while it is wet. As soon as it dries, everything just smells clean. I hear you can add EOs to the water/vinegar mix to cover up the vinegar smell. I haven’t bothered because I like to change the scent a lot more frequently than we use up the big spray bottles of vin/wat spray cleaner (~16 oz plant sprayers in a previous life). I use small spray bottles (4-8 oz) for my scented counter cleaners mentioned in the beginning of this novel. ;)
http://barefoot-mom.blogspot.com Courtney

I’m a loyal Norwex user, so I use their enviro cloth for cleaning most any surface. They have a drain cleaner that works awesome, but it’s spendy. It’s very safe and ecofriendly, just spendy is all. So this is something I will surely try!!
http://makeitbakeitbuyitfakeit.blogspot.com Stephanie

Hey, now I WILL try the “draino volcanco”! :) I kept wondering if it might work because of the bubbly reaction storming up and down the drain pipe…now I know! I’m going to do all my drains now (I’m sure they could use it!).

I should have realized it, but I didn’t make the connection right away. When you bake with baking soda it’s the bubbly action that you’re after too. That’s why the dry ingredients (incl. the BS) are introduced to the wet (incl. the acid) just before you pop whatever it is in the oven. And if the batter or dough sits around too long after being mixed together, the bread or cookies will be dense and flat. The power in in the bubbles!

On my counter tops (and virtually all other surfaces in the kitchen and bath)… Spray bottle with 50/50 vinegar and water with some essential oil. For scrubbing, a paste of baking soda and water.

I’m wondering if the BS/Vin bubble reaction will work for cleaning out bottles? Or might it be too explosive? I like to reuse bottles but sometimes they’re hard to clean out, especially if there is oily residue.
Margie

I don’t know where I got this same tip from, but I used it in my mom’s kitchen drain and she got all excited. I’ve been crunchy all these years and never even knew it. :-) Usually I pour the vinegar around the sink (instead of right down the drain) to give it an extra clean before it all goes down. Double duty vinegar.
Julie

We have hard water here and so we tend to get a ring around the toilet at the water line (some sort of calcification I guess). When I clean the toilet, I scrub the porcelain with baking soda or borax and let stand for an hour or so. Then I pour in some vinegar, let it bubble up, flush, and voila, bye-bye hard water ring.
- Salix
  
  I have used a bottle of cola to remove the hard water rings around the toilet – as far as I am concerned, it is the only good use for cola!
  
  I buy the really cheap store own-brand stuff, remove as much water as possible by pushing it down the drain with a plunger and then pour the bottle of cola in. Let it sit for half an hour or so and then scrub and flush to rinse.
  
  For general toilet cleaning I use borax – dump a cup of so in, scrub the sides and then flush.
  - Julie
    
    That’s a great idea! Thanks. I’ll give it a try after my next trip to the store.
- Toilets are my life.
  
  Scrub the ring with a pumice stone (89 cents @ WM). The porcelain is harder so won’t be scratched by the stone. Works great!
http://lilacsinmay.blogspot.com Ronda

I kinda enjoy doing this!
http://litasworld.com Jen @ Lita’s world

OMG I do this all the time – I just love to watch the bubbling action! I also use it in my toilet to give it an extra fresh flush of cleaning.

On another note, have you read anywhere about making your own dish soap? Right now I buy the largest container of it I can and then transfer it to a smaller one by the sink. I’m really trying to reduce our plastic consumption to as close to zero as possible and dish soap is the one thing I don’t seem to have a recipe for….thanks for any input!
- kylieonwheels
  
  You can just use ordinary soap to wash dishes. The only reason detergent came along was because soap wasn’t lathering in hard water. Soap will still break down the greasies though. I tried it for a bit when I moved house before I found the dish liquid again, you just have to be super careful because the dishes get VERY slippery when they’re soapy. Have a rinse sink or bucket of water with a capful of vinegar in it and the dishes will turn squeaky and suds free! I seem to recall that it may have left some water marks on the wine glasses, but I didn’t do it for very long so it might have been a technique that improved with a little refining :)
Salix

I love cleaning the drains with baking soda and vinegar. I usually add a few drops of tea-tree oil to the baking soda before putting it down because I like the way it makes it all smell fresh. I don’t pour pots of boiling water down before and after, instead, I run the hot tap down for a few minutes. But the fizzing and bubbling never fails to fascinate the kidlets.

For counter-tops, I use a basic all-purpose cleaning spray – vinegar, water, a small squirt of dish-washing detergent (I use a biodegradable one) and some tea-tree oil. But if I get a really stubborn mark that needs a good scrub I use a paste made up of baking soda and dish-washing detergent rubbed in well with a damp cloth. Actually, I use that kind of paste for cleaning anything stubborn from really grimy bathtub rings to burned on pans.
http://www.jessilicious.com Jessilicious

Ooohh, I like the sound of this – will have to give it a try! :)

And thanks to all the other comments here, I now have some great ideas for mixing up some other household cleaners… Whooo hoooo! ;)
Adrienne

I use baking soda + vinegar to get the cooked-on stuff off the top of a gas range, or a charcoal grill grate. You can usually take the top off of a gas range, so I take it off, lay it on top of an old towel, and bs + v it to death. Let it sit a while, and all the gunk comes off super easily. I have done the same with a grill grate.

And yes, it’s so fun to watch and do, I am always looking for new uses for this stuff together…!
kylieonwheels

You’ve motivated me to do a bit of ‘preventative maintenance’ on my drains. Better to clean them when they aren’t yet blocked methinks!

As for countertops, I’m much the same as the rest of the gang, just a 50-50 vinegar-water spray bottle. And I bust out a sprinkling of bicarb when ‘someone’ leaves a puddle of egg yolk on the cooktop and it goes all hard. When there is a cough or sniffle in the house I tend to put a bit of eucalyptus or tea tree in the sprayer too (and chase the sniffler around with the bottle in hand and a “hmmmm!!!” on my face!)

My bedhead has horizontal slats which get a bit dusty, and I wipe them down with a cloth wet with water and a drop or two of a nice essential oil so that my room is nice and fragrant.
http://thelivinggreensolution.com Lane’

I didn’t have a chance to respond to your first post due to a crazy 48 hour stomach bug. But… I SWEAR by baking soda followed by vinegar in my toilet. I pour some baking soda down the toilet, scrub, then some vinegar, let it fizz and then sit (for as long as I can). I don’t know if it’s the combination of the two or just the two doing their powers separately, but nothing has proven to work better.

As for a good counter cleaner, I LOVE this recipe:

All-Purpose Cleaner

1 teaspoon antiseptic essential oils (eucalyptus, lavender, tea tree – I use a combination of all)
1 teaspoon washing soda
2 teaspoons borax
1/2 teaspoon liquid castile soap
2 cups hot water

Directions:

- Combine ingredients in a spray bottle (repurpose an old one if you can).
- Shake well.
- Spray cleaner onto surface, leave for 1.5 minutes for the cleaner to have its full effect.
- Wipe with a rag.

I can go on and on about why it’s important to use greener cleaners/less-toxic options – I urge people, if not for you, think of your pets and/or your children!
http://foodembrace.com Andrea

I use this method to clean my toilets. I add baking soda to the water, pour in vinegar and watch it fizz. I let it sit for several minutes and then scrub like normal. :)

I use vinegar + hot water + essential oil of choice once a week for a thorough cleaning of the house (including stainless steel appliances). And I have a spray bottle of vinegar and water for spot cleaning and wiping up countertops, and cleaning the stainless steel sink.

I love using vinegar!
hg

So, I know this post is so three months ago, but I just wanted to add, if you have rust stains, vinegar and baking soda is magic! Mix up a paste and put it on the stain, and use a toothbrush or scrubby. Gone! You may have to let it sit depending on the stain. We have iron well water and it gets to be a problem – this melts it right off. You can use it on clothing, or soak rusty metal in it. I discovered this about the same time you actually blogged about it (maybe the universe had a thing about it?), but I just found your site yesterday. Anyhoo, just wanted to share. Your site is fabulous!
Starz

If u have white counter tops baking soda and water will get the stains off without damaging the finish. I had white tops the people before me used bleach (which is a no no cuz it strips the finish off) and so my tops stained easy, i mean anything would stain it even tea even if i wiped it up as soon as it touched the counter. I found online to try bs and water and it worked great and didnt damage it and the kids (3&4) could touch it and would hut them. I even used magic erasers and it worked.
- Starz
  
  sorry forgot to add make it into a paste and let it sit on the stain for a couple mins
Olson1194

I appreciate your advice. I am wondering though about the boiling water down the drain. My plumber told me not to put boiling water down my drains as it is damageing to the PVC pipes. Maybe ok in older homes perhaps?
- Audrey Pecott
  
  I hear ya, especially if you’re not sure what type pipes you have. We ended up running the hottest water that would come out of the tap, and it worked!
Audrey Pecott

A couple thanksgivings ago (and in the midst of a blizzard) our bathtub drain backed up. Yippee. We actually tried the harsh chemical stuff to no success before trying this. Needless to say, we were converts.
Amisattinger

Thanks for the great healthy household tip. I just used it on a stubborn bathroom sink drain and like it SO much better than the unfriendly chemical drain cleaners. Vinegar and baking soda are the best household supplies to keep around. It worked great and I will do it regularly now!
Melnkay

I use it on my stove top!
Jen

Thank you for posting this. My son put an oreo in our bathroom sink and then ran the water, pushing it into the drain and clogging it. It was stuck in places we could not get. Thanks to your article, we now have an unclogged, no longer leaking sink.
http://twitter.com/DesireeEast Artist Desiree East

Thank you!! I just googled how I can unclog my bathroom sink drain, and you came up :) It was like a science experiment, with all of the gurgling noises!
redesertrose

Look for a book called Vim and Vinegar. lots of stuff there.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Colette-Steinorth/1425594390 Colette Steinorth

boiling vinager, microwave till bubbling, wil clean anything like the BBQ thats sticky. shower doors with soap scum. Gum on anything, hair, shoes, clothes.
http://www.facebook.com/samantha.brusky Samantha Brusky

Would this concoction be safe for plastic pvc pipes?
Iloveitright

I clean EVERYTHING with vinegar, my favorite is leaving orange peels in a mason jar of vin for about 2 weeks and then throwing it in a spary bottle, works on wood like pledge and does well on glass no streaks and has gotten off gross things from every surface of my not so well maintained by others apartment :) I love vinegar and dont mind the smell but my man not so much, this makes him want to use it cause he things it smells awesome, choose any citrus. For bad stains like on a sink or stove rub bakig soda with a scotchbrite bad lightly then spray your magic stuff on, and if you dont love how easily it comes off your crazy ;)
Dulcie

Put tarnished silver jewelry in an aluminum pan add a couple tablespoons of baking soda and pour in some vinegar and watch the tarnish disappear. (Don’t use on anything with paint or fake pearls – they will dissolve!)

Also soak a rag in vinegar and wrap it around the base of faucets where hard water has deposited. Wait 30 minutes to an hour and the deposits will wipe right off.
kk

This doesn’t have to do with baking soda or vinegar, but for ultra clogged drains, my family uses a Zip It tool thingamajig. It works remarkabley!! They’re just a few dollars, can be used and abused over and over again (I have long hair that comes out a lot in the shower and doesn’t always get caught by the drain strainer, so ours has gone through a lot of abuse over the 6 years and didn’t need replaced till recently), and they’re easy to use!
http://www.facebook.com/angel.ryan.581 Angel Ryan

I have also found that this combo works well for getting stuck-on food and such off of the table easily. For example, on a super hectic day if my 2yo has “cream a wheap” (so sweet) and he drops some that I don’t see until say homework or dinner time, it is a dried stuck aweful mess!! And that is a serious understatement! But, if I spray my vinegar/water mix (roughly 1/3 vinegar mixed with 2/3 water) I use this for almost EVERYTHING in my house and rub a little and then add a sprinkle of baking soda let it fizz and scrub off no big deal…VOILA!
Kathy

Any suggestions for old pet stains?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1457537430 Mark Gailmor Ⓥ

I have three books that take care of all my cleaning needs.

1. Solve it With Salt by Patty Moosbrugger
2. Baking Soda by Vicki Lansky
3. Vinegar by Vicki Lansky

Buy these three books and you won’t need to buy another cleaning product for as long as you live. Look on youtube for natural recipes for deodorant and soap detergent.
Harlan

Is their anything I can add to my carpet cleaner to safely brighten my light colored carpet?
http://www.facebook.com/catherine.stuckey1 Catherine Stuckey

Thank you so much for the drain cleaner recipe. So much cheaper than a bottled product, and I’m not afraid a stray drop will eat thru my skin or clothing. :-)
Guest

This didn’t work for me. The Final Rinse went down the drain just fine — but I washed dishes 20 minutes later only for the sink to drain very, very s l o w l y. :/

I had such high hopes for this.

IDK, perhaps I should try it again…?
- Katie Clark
  
  Yes do it again – we have a house full of girls with long hair and so my tub drain was always clogged – we have a septic tank so I hate using the over the counter toxic stuff – so I did this method – it didn’t work the first time the way I thought it would. Pouring in the hot water first just expanded into the tub – so i put the backing soda down the drain the best I could and then poured alot of vinager, closed the drain for about 5 minutes, then ran hot water down the drain – I had to do this about three times – then all of a sudden the water went down. no clogged drain anymore – I now do this once a month to keep it unclogged . good luck.
http://www.conceitedgirl.com Alexa

I know this is an old post, but I’m having visions of carrying a pot of boiling water from the first floor kitchen to the third floor on the other side of the house where my bedroom is…
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mary-Abercrombie/1239500863 Mary Abercrombie

I use baking soda and vinegar to clean tub and shower. It works amazingly, hardly any scrubbing. I also us a mixture of 1 part vinegar and 2 parts water in a spray bottle to mop our hardwood floors.
http://www.facebook.com/judith.high Judith High

All I can say is thanks!!! Having two people in the house with long hair both me and the fiance. It saved a lot of money.

$90 for a tub
$60 for a sink
From a plumber

Liquid Plumber = 7.00

My Vinegar and Baking Soda and Water…. 1.25

Savings of 5.75 to 148.75. Just saying it adds up.

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