Slow Drain Lines

If you’re living in one of the older homes around Hinsdale, Elmhurst or Oak Park and you have problems with slow drains in your house, then your real problem could be sludge in the drain lines. If this is the case then chemicals and plumbing alone won’t solve your problem; what you need is for someone to get up on your rooftop and use a metal snaking system to clear our your drain lines. It’s a very difficult, very messy job that requires a trained professional plumber.

If your home drains are slow and giving you trouble, give Scottish Plumber a call to see what their plumbing technicians can do to help you out. We are drain cleaning experts serving the whole Chicagoland area, including Elmhurst, Hinsdale, Oak Park and of course, Chicago.

http://www.scottishplumber.com/drain-cleaning

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 Tags: clogged drain, Drain Cleaning, drain cleaning alternatives, drain remedies, plumber chicago

Drain Cleaning and Sewer Back-ups

Drain Cleaning may sound easy, but it is actually pretty complicated. Once a clog is discovered which is not localized to one sink or toilet, then it becomes difficult for a homeowner to unclog. It’s a bad idea for homeowners to open up the sewer pipe in the basement to try to unclog the sewer. If there is a whole house clog, the sewer can be what we call “fully charged” and when opened, large amounts of backed up sewage may shoot out into the basement and onto anyone standing nearby. For this reason, whole house plumbing stoppages should be left to a professional.

Another factor involved is age- old plumbing systems differ greatly from new ones in terms of design. Chicago and other large cities have combined sewage and storm sewers, requiring different types of protection from sewer backups. Newer suburbs have seperate sewers – one for storm water and one for sewage. Many times when storms drop large amounts of rain, storm water and sewage backs up into Chicago homes because the system is overloaded with storm water. This is why Chicago homes need more than just a sump pump- they need a specific flood control system. The Scottish Plumber installs flood controls systems in the city of Chicago and it’s suburbs plus gives a 10-year guarantee free from this type of back up. In newer townships, storm sewers are totally separate from sewage lines and so they also need specific types of flood control systems.

At Scottish Plumber, we run a $99 drain cleaning special for all Chicagoland locations to keep your water flowing!

http://www.scottishplumber.com/drain-cleaning

Saturday, January 1st, 2011 Tags: clog drain, drain cleaning alternatives, plumber chicago, sewage smell, sewer gas smell

Does vinegar and baking soda unclog a drain?

We’ve heard of a lot of people attempting to use a mixture of vinegar and baking soda to unclog a slow drain, but unfortunately, we haven’t heard of much success using this method. And as the expert drain cleaners we are, many people have asked us for our opinion on this mixture. bubbles

From a scientific standpoint, it really doesn’t make any sense that a mixture of vinegar and baking soda would unclog a drain. When you mix the two, the acetic acid in the vinegar reacts with the sodium bicarbonate in baking soda, and this acid-meets-base combination creates the sudden surge of bubbles to form that we’re all familiar with (remember your 6th grade science experiment of making the volcano?).

The reaction is known as a “double replacement” reaction. The acetic acid and sodium bicarbonate form carbonic acid, which is a very weak acid and sometimes used in soft drinks. But the carbonic acid is unstable, and immediately falls apart into carbon dioxide and water in a decomposition reaction. The bubbles that form in the reaction come from the carbon dioxide being created- and if you’ve ever mixed vinegar and baking soda together, you’ve noticed how quickly the bubbles form… so the carbonic acid doesn’t last very long and is too weak to break down any materials in a clog such as hair or soap.

Some of the leftover baking soda is usually left in the pipe, which can actually make an existing clog worse if the reaction turns it into a sludge that doesn’t rinse away easily. The Scottish Plumber usually recommends Bio-Clean to most homeowners who are looking for an environmentally friendly and safe way to clean their drains. Bio-Clean uses natural bacteria and enzymes that break down organic material like hair and soap. Contact The Scottish Plumber for more information on how to get Bio-Clean, or visit the Bio-Clean page on our site.

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 Tags: Bio-Clean, clogged drain, drain cleaning alternatives, drain remedies