Zoe drain cleaner/opener – Bad for your plumbing??

I was just at Home Depot and scored two bottles of Zep drain opener for a dollar each! Are used drain cleaner years ago but haven’t in a long time. I hear a lot of people when I’m in the plumbing Aisle talk about how this kind of stuff is bad for your plumbing and can eat away at plastic and rubber and that kind of thing.

Does anybody know if this kind of stuff really is bad for your pipes and you should avoid it and only use it as a last resort?

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I think your ok with pvc for the most part. Some of the old steel and cast iron pipe could get fucked up by using it too much.

Acid is most corrosive on metals, I stay away from any stain cleaner, best tactic I’ve found for flushing slow draining lines out is extremely hot water and bleach, just don’t inhale


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It’s rare I come across a situation where the drain cleaner like this actually worked, it’s almost always something permanently damaged or a sagging pipe or cast iron that acts like Velcro as waste from a kitchen sink tries to drain through… That Velcro effect is from old cast iron pipes and doesn’t just go away from liquid drain cleaner…. 

In the one instance it did work, no one really knows what happened but it was newer plumbing and something may have got caught up on a fitting, I may never know, or the problem may return.

If you bought it for that cheap, you’re not losing much at all, try it and worse case is it doesn’t help, then you gotta get the drain auger out

my kitchen drain seems to clog a lot. The disposal also shoots water up the drain on the other sink.

Jronman wrote:

13 hours ago, Jronman said:

my kitchen drain seems to clog a lot. The disposal also shoots water up the drain on the other sink.

When I hear that around here, it’s almost always old iron drain pipes. Only other thing it’s been is poorly installed drain lines that sag and accumulate waste, blocking the flow.

If it’s the former, snake it out and hope you get through. If the latter, it needs fixed.  The old iron pipe will need replaced at some time, no getting around that, if that’s what you have

KnarlyCarl wrote:

When I hear that around here, it’s almost always old iron drain pipes. Only other thing it’s been is poorly installed drain lines that sag and accumulate waste, blocking the flow.
If it’s the former, snake it out and hope you get through. If the latter, it needs fixed.  The old iron pipe will need replaced at some time, no getting around that, if that’s what you have

JimboS1ice wrote:

7 hours ago, JimboS1ice said:

I hate old cast pipes, few months ago I finally got all the plumbing updated in my parents house


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Good on you dude, that’s my bread and butter haha

In many places cast is still required for fire reasons. it doesn’t burn like pvc can.

I’m talking hospitals and institutions 

KnarlyCarl wrote:

Good on you dude, that’s my bread and butter haha
 
In many places cast is still required for fire reasons. it doesn’t burn like pvc can.
I’m talking hospitals and institutions 

JimboS1ice wrote:

9 minutes ago, JimboS1ice said:

Ya more commercial and industrial code requires that, you’d have a field day in my neck of the woods, tons of house built with cast all pre 1960


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Same here ha 

My sister bought a house recently and there’s bubbles forming on the cast iron that ooze out liquid ever so little then dry up and you poke them(with a knife, that’s sewage yo)  and it starts dripping…. She was not happy to find that out but hey at least i taught her to see the warning signs lol