Bathrooms are not just showers, tubs, basins, faucets et al…unfortunately they are also dingy drains and slippery soaps! If you are one of those souls whose bathroom gets persistently flooded and who is continuously struggling with soaps and how to ease their wastage then you’ve come to the right place, my friend! Read on to know amazing drain cleaning hacks, how to smoothly, efficiently and quickly handle these domestic hassles…
Let’s begin with clogged drain hacks first.
How to Deal With Clogged Drains?
The drains in our house remain in two states: clogged and unclogged. The remedies that you follow should work like magic to clear your drain without you having to bother about harmful fumes, harsh chemicals or even an expensive plumber!
Firstly, Clean and Deodorize Bathroom
Bathrooms are the most used part of a home. Hence, it is expected that your bathrooms may emanate some unpleasant smell, either once in a while or quiet regularly. If you sense a foul smell from your bathroom, it is probably coming from its drain. But here’s a trick that never fails.
Pour one or two cups of baking soda down the bathroom drain. Follow by flushing it with hot tap water. On plus side this clogged drain hack is eco friendly and user friendly.
Along with this unpleasant smell, the drain flies are uninvited to your home. Gharpedia provides you with more solutions to deal with drain flies.
Fixing Clogged Drains
Given below are the drain cleaning hacks that guarantees to unclog your clogged drain.
- If the water in your bathroom drain or tub isn’t draining as quickly as it should, chances are there is a tangle of hair that clogged bathroom drainage and needs to be cleaned out. It’s a simple yet disgusting job, but someone’s got to do it. You’ll want to wear rubber gloves and have a plastic bag handy. Twist and pull out the pop-up stopper. Remove the hair and put it in the bag. Then clean the gunk off the metal tube with one tablespoon of baking soda or one ounce of distilled white vinegar on a sponge. Then replace the stopper and see how quickly the water goes down from the blocked drain.
- If your bathroom drain is emitting foul smell then go for baking soda drain trick. Pour one cup of baking soda down the clogged drain of your shower or bathtub. Follow it up with one cup of table salt and half a cup of distilled white vinegar. If there is foaming, fizzing or gurgling – that’s good. Let the ingredients continue working their way through the sludgy clog, while you boil two quarts of tap water and set a kitchen timer for fifteen minutes. When the timer goes off, carefully and slowly pour the boiled water down the bathroom sink drain. Now, let the hot tap water run for a minute. If the drain isn’t completely unclogged then repeat the entire procedure again.
- Toss three Alka-Seltzer tablets down the drain and add one cup of distilled white vinegar. Wait for three minutes and then run the hot water.
However, this hack is equally efficient for the clogged sinks as well.
How to Keep a Drain from Clogging?
As they always say, ‘prevention is better than cure’. According to James Carey and Morris Carey (2011) (Authors of the book “Home Maintenance For Dummies”) ‘Cooking grease, coffee grounds, hair and soap scum are four of a drain’s biggest enemies. Do whatever you can to avoid introducing any of these items into a drain.’ Taking care of few minor things can help in preventing clogged drains. Following are the measures to keep your drain from clogging.
- How to Prevent Hair Form Clogging Drain? Use a hair catcher over the drain every time someone showers or bathes. They are inexpensive and available at most hardware shops and even some supermarkets.
A word of friendly counsel – Hair catchers generally come in two sizes, so measure the diameter of your drain before you go shopping.
- How to keep drains clear? Flush your drain regularly with hot water. If not daily then atleast twice a week. By doing this you can keep your drains clear and odour free.
- Avoid soap scum and soap slivers to get deposited in drain.
Preventing clogged drains by taking little care is far better than clearing clogged drain. Clear bathroom drain also keeps roaches at bay.
Moving on to another major concern of bathroom. Yes! It’s the handling of wet soap bars.
How To Make Bar Soap Last Longer?
The innovative and influential artist Pablo Picasso once said, ‘The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off ourselves.’ If that can be applied to soaps, then here are some very helpful ways to make the most of your bars of soap.
- Keep a sponge on the soap dish and place the soap on the sponge. The sponge will absorb all of the soap’s drippings and won’t create soap scum in the drain (you may want to forget about the soap dish and just use a sponge instead!)
- Place a small, waterproof object – the plastic cover from a prescription-pill bottle or the round plastic core of a used-up roll of transparent tape – and keep it on the soap dish. Place the wet soap on top of the object which will enable the soap to dry without soap mush getting stuck to the dish.
What to Do with Soap Slivers?
- Instead of discarding the last little sliver of soap, paste it onto the new bar of soap. Just suds up the new bar and stick the sliver on top. The two soaps will dry as one bar.
- You can recycle slivers of soap by making slits in a bath sponge. Then stick the slivers into the sponge and enjoy a soapy bath or shower!
Bonus Tip: Soap life extension
Keep a bar of soap unwrapped for a month before you use it – the air-exposed soap will harden and once you start using it, it will last longer than usual. If the unwrapped soap is scented, let it sit in your linen closet. It will make your clothes smell nice.
Conclusion
Just a few small and simple drain cleaning hacks and how to keep bar soap dry ideas that keeps all your cleaning clogged drains and wet soap issues at bay! Now all you’ve got to do is enjoy a relaxing and soothing shower to kick start a day or call it a day! Beside the above matter, here are a few ways through which you can prevent clogs.
Clog Protection Basics: 10 Things You Should Never Flush Down the Drain
Author Bio
Huta Raval – An English Literature and Journalism Topper, Huta Raval has graduated from the L D Arts College, Ahmedabad. Post serving for 23 years in the NBFC and Public Library Sectors her desire for ‘writing the unwritten’ brought her to the creative field of content writing. Her clientele comprises of NGOs, Blogging Platforms, Newspapers, Academic Institutions, et al.