Drain uncloggers are a caustic. Meaning they are a strong base that eats stuff away. They are generally safe to use except for two very specific circumstances.
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you really don’t want to use them if you’re on a septic system. It will kill the good bacteria that eats your poop. It’s not a deal breaker, your system will repopulate eventually. But it could lead to a backup. In my opinion - just don’t use that stuff with septic tanks ever.
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if your pipes are old af and on their last legs. Or some of your joints are shoddy. Draino might eat through that last little bit of metal and cause a leak. But to be fair, a snake could bust something open too. This isn’t a problem with modern plumbing. Nothing you can do about it except watch for leaks no matter what you do (or replace that old plumbing).
I’ll offer some advice. For like $35 bucks you can buy a real honest to goodness plumbing snake that’s hand operated. Mine has a little orange saucer thingy the snake coils up into. You pull out some of the snake, and stick it in the drain. You push with one hand, and you use the other to twist the snake via the big hand crank knob thingy. You push a foot or so of the snake down the drain, then pull out a bit more of the snake from the saucer, and then push that bit down the drain (always hand crank spinning). It’s SUPER easy to do.
The one I have is like 25 feet long, and I have cleared some of the nastiest clogs with that thing. I’m talking 5 foot long clogs of my wife’s hair/grease/soap grossness. Draino would never clear that - but the snake makes short work of it in less than 10 minutes. I spend a few bucks on some rubber gloves instead of hundreds on plumbers and expensive Draino.
TLDR: get a hand snake. They work amazing, are super easy to use, and are less money than Draino (and plumbers)
Edit/update: I’ve got one like this: https://www.homedepot.com/p/RIDGID-EZ-SPIN-Drain-Cleaning-Snake-Auger-80168/332294628
GenX here. I was alive and remember the older folks the millennials and later didn’t get to meet. Boomers were, and still are, much more liberal than their parents and grandparents were. It’s hard to imagine but it’s true. Example: god forbid you were a girl - you could be one of three acceptable things 1) a baby factory/cook/maid for your husband 2) a nurse 3) a nun. And 2 and 3 were sketchy - those were just for the ugly girls….I’m serious… They shouldn’t vote, they didn’t have credit cards, and they certainly didn’t need to “think” - just do what your father said until your husband took that job over. GenX girls literally could be whatever they wanted - we were the first generation where that was possible (even if it came with disapproving side eyes - it was still possible).
The generational hate is misplaced IMO. It’s hard for my kids to understand what life was like after ww2 and the fifties. Boomers really did think and act quite liberally compared to the world they grew up in. We gen Xers saw a glimpse of that world and for all the boomer’s faults, we appreciated what our parents tried to make for us. I’m not saying they were perfect, there tends to be a lot of selfishness in that generation as well as pulling up the ladder behind them. GenX ain’t like that generally speaking. I don’t think you’ll see that type of behavior from us. If you want to criticize us, you’d have to point at our apathy and “fuck it” attitude. We’ve seen some shit yo, and we were tired of it all by high school. Some of it is the same rage boomers rebelled against, some of it directed at all the fucked-up-ness that was new (the economy, the environment, drugs alcoholism and physical abuse, the rich’s exploitation of the working class, having to care for both kids and our parents on a pauper’s salary, etc.). We ain’t perfect, and some older GenX might as well be boomers - but in the end I’m not sure any of it matters. There just ain’t enough of us compared to the rest of you. Boomers croak, and millennials, genz, and alpha have like 75%+ of the vote (someone should fact check me on that but I think I’m in the ballpark). And I would HOPE my generational cohorts would vote more in line with the younger folks - because otherwise they are posers who sold out (they should listen more closely to their Rage Against the Machine lyrics).
Remember, it’s class warfare, not generational warfare.