apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Never pour boiling water into a toilet. The porcelain most toilets are made out of can't handle dramatic temperature changes, and can crack if you dump in a bunch of boiling water (especially if the bowl has had icy cold water sitting in it for a few minutes).

Trust me, the last thing you want is for your toilet bowl to crack in half, fall apart and unleash a torrent of toilet water into your bathroom.

So to play devil's advocate and maybe learn something, why shouldn't we use drano?

Given that modern city sewer systems have extensive treatment plants, what specifically are the disadvantages of using drano to open a clogged drain?

Can the treatment facilities not adequately handle it or are we just anti-chemical on the left-coast?

I was told by the handyman in our old apartment that Drano would dissolve the wax ring that sealed the toilet to the floor drain and let the (filthy) water in the bowl seep out the bottom and onto the floor. Maybe he was just making that up, but if true it would be a real frying pan into the fire scenario. We always plunge or snake, which is time consuming but effective.

I can't see how baking soda could possibly clear a toilet though. A baking soda and vinegar combo can sometimes clear a sink or bath drain, but that's because the chemical reaction exerts force against the clog if the other end is blocked. In a clogged toilet there's so much water that there wouldn't be much of a fizz, plus there's no way to stopper up the other end. The boiling water advice seems pretty dumb too. Advice about clearing sink and tub drains doesn't translate wholesale to toilets; they're different systems.

dot - Good point about the wax ring!

I googled for a bit and found some things that suggest that with repeated uses that the Drano could damage a wax ring.

Drano's own web site says to never use it in a toilet though.

The water in the fixture keeps it from doing any good.

They say that none of their products will open a completely clogged toilet.

They also say that using Drano "Kitchen Crystals" (never heard of 'em till now) generate enough heat to ruin a toilet.

http://www.drano.com/unclog-drain/

Now that we know not to use Drano on a toilet - why should we not use it on a drain in a city that has a modern treatment facility? Just a general warm fuzzy left coast "chemicals are bad, umkay", or is there some meat to the statement?

By the way - Portland Oregon dumps raw sewage into the Willamette River every time it rains, practically. And it rains here about 10 months out of the year. You couldn't pay me to eat local caught fish.

So when I said "modern city" I wasn't talking about Portland, "The City that Works". Or rather "the city that uses every excuse in the book to raise your taxes while doing nothing in return".

boomer, Drano contains sodium hydroxide, also known as lye, which indiscriminately dissolves organic material and causes corrosion. In short, Drano and its cousins can dissolve plastic (PVC) and older metal pipes, or the soldering at the joins of older pipes, causing leaks in the building that can be quite difficult to repair. It's often included in your lease (especially if you live in an older building like I do) that you are prohibited from using chemical means to clear blocked drains.

It sounds like the toilet suggestions came straight from the clogged sink suggestions, and while similar beasts, I can see why the same stuff doesn't work. Although I've never had icy-cold water in my toilet, I'd think there would be too much water in the bowl/pipes for the boiling water to be effective in the toilet. And like Dot pointed out, would the baking soda thing really work?

I guess I am looking for some more viable suggestions to keep my toilet "healthy", so I don't have a mental breakdown when it overflows!