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The water is standing in your sink again, draining slow or not at all, and you are about to reach for that harsh orange bottle from under the counter, the one with the warnings all over it that costs the earth and burns your eyes to open. Before you do, let me show you a plain mineral that costs about two dollars, sits in a box on the shelf, and clears a slow drain without a single harsh fume or a dollar wasted.
It is called washing soda, and the old folks kept it for the laundry and the cleaning and the drains long before anybody sold a special poison in a bottle for the job. It is not the same as the baking soda in your cupboard, though they are cousins. Washing soda is stronger, and against a greasy, sluggish drain it does real work.
In this video:
✓ What washing soda is, and how it differs from ordinary baking soda
✓ Why grease and soap scum are what clog most drains, and how washing soda cuts them
✓ The plain step-by-step method to clear and maintain a slow drain
✓ Why boiling water and washing soda together do more than either alone
✓ How to keep a drain running clear so it never
https://eliasyoder.com
The water is standing in your sink again, draining slow or not at all, and you are about to reach for that harsh orange bottle from under the counter, the one with the warnings all over it that costs the earth and burns your eyes to open. Before you do, let me show you a plain mineral that costs about two dollars, sits in a box on the shelf, and clears a slow drain without a single harsh fume or a dollar wasted.
It is called washing soda, and the old folks kept it for the laundry and the cleaning and the drains long before anybody sold a special poison in a bottle for the job. It is not the same as the baking soda in your cupboard, though they are cousins. Washing soda is stronger, and against a greasy, sluggish drain it does real work.
In this video:
✓ What washing soda is, and how it differs from ordinary baking soda
✓ Why grease and soap scum are what clog most drains, and how washing soda cuts them
✓ The plain step-by-step method to clear and maintain a slow drain
✓ Why boiling water and washing soda together do more than either alone
✓ How to keep a drain running clear so it never
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00It is a Tuesday night at the kitchen sink. You turn the faucet on to rinse a few dishes,
00:05and the water just sits there. It pools around the drain, refuses to go down,
00:11and slowly creeps up toward the rim. You sigh. You walk to the cabinet under the sink and reach
00:19for the orange bottle you have been buying since you moved into this house. Seven dollars. Maybe
00:24$7.50. You have purchased six of them in the past two years, and every time the drain clears for
00:32a
00:32few weeks, then slows down again, then clogs again, and you make another trip to the hardware store
00:38for another orange bottle. I want to be straight with you before I go further. There is a four
00:45dollar box of mineral powder sitting on the cleaning aisle of every grocery store in America that does
00:51the same job as that orange bottle. At one-tenth the cost, with zero damage to your pipes, and used
00:59as a monthly maintenance treatment, prevents the clog from ever forming in the first place.
01:04The mineral has been mined and sold in America since 1846. Armin Hammer has manufactured it
01:12commercially for over a hundred years, and Esther's grandmother kept a box of it on the pantry shelf
01:18for 60 years, using it for laundry, for cleaning, for degreasing pots, and yes, for keeping the
01:26household drains clear. The orange bottle never sat under her sink because she never needed it.
01:33I am Elias Yoder. I am Amish, and I farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Today I am going to walk
01:41you
01:41through the real chemistry of how commercial drain cleaners actually work, and why they damage your pipes
01:48the way they do. Then I am going to show you the simple $2 mineral that does the same chemistry
01:54safely,
01:55the recipe Esther uses to keep our farmhouse drains clear, the standing water version for when the sink
02:03is already backed up, and the monthly 30 second maintenance routine that means you never see a
02:09serious clog again. By the end of this video, the orange bottle stays on the hardware store shelf
02:17forever. Quick word before I go further. The old methods my family uses, there is more of it than
02:24fits in any one video. I gathered the whole of it into a book at EliasYoder.com. The book is
02:33the long
02:33version. If you want it, it is there. I will not mention it again. Now, the chemistry of what is
02:41happening inside those orange bottles, plainly. What is actually inside the commercial drain cleaner?
02:49Commercial drain cleaners, the ones in the bright orange and yellow bottles at the hardware store,
02:54typically contain three active components. First, sodium hydroxide, also called lye or caustic soda.
03:04This is the chemical that does the work. Sodium hydroxide has a pH of 14, the highest possible
03:11alkalinity on the chemistry scale. It tears apart the molecular bonds of grease, hair, and organic matter
03:18through a process called alkaline hydrolysis. Second, sodium hypochlorite, common household bleach.
03:27Adds disinfectant properties and helps break down soft organic debris. Third, aluminum flakes,
03:36the part most folks do not know about. When sodium hydroxide contacts aluminum in water,
03:42it triggers a rapid reaction. The reaction produces hydrogen gas and releases significant heat. Inside
03:51your drain pipe, the temperature climbs sharply. The heat is intentional. It is designed to melt and
03:58liquefy the grease congealed on your pipe walls. That heat works. It also damages your pipes. Why the
04:06commercial chemistry damages your plumbing. This is verified by plumbing professionals across North
04:12America. Sodium hydroxide-based drain cleaners cause documented damage to residential plumbing over
04:19repeated use. Standard Schedule 40 PVC, the white plastic pipe under most modern sinks, begins to deform
04:28and degrade under sustained heat exposure from the lye-aluminum reaction. The joints loosen. The seals
04:36between pipe sections break down microscopically, not after one use. Over five uses, eight uses,
04:45ten uses. The accumulation is the problem. For older homes, anything built before about 1980,
04:52the pipes are typically cast iron or galvanized steel. The commercial drain cleaners damage these pipes as
05:00well. Sulfuric acid versions corrode the iron directly. The alkaline versions accelerate the rust scale buildup
05:08that narrows the pipe diameter over time. Either way, the long-term cost is real plumbing damage that
05:16requires a real plumber to repair. Plumbing associations across North America formally recommend against repeated
05:24use of lye-based drain cleaners. That recommendation has been on the record for over 20 years. It is not
05:31a secret. It is published in plumbing trade journals, in homeowner safety guides, in plumber training materials.
05:39But the orange bottle still sells $400 million worth in North America every year because folks under stress reach for
05:48the strongest looking product on the shelf and trust the marketing. There is also the issue of the
05:55chlorine gas. When the bleach in the commercial cleaner mixes with any residual cleaning product
06:01already in your drain, vinegar, ammonia, another brand of cleaner, the reaction produces chlorine gas.
06:08Low concentration in most cases. But it builds up in a closed cabinet under the sink with no ventilation
06:16every single time you use it. That is the honest picture of what the orange bottle is actually doing.
06:24Real cleaning chemistry. Real pipe damage. Real chlorine exposure. Real recurring cost.
06:32The chemistry of clogs. Grease versus hair. Before I introduce the mineral, you need to understand what a
06:40clog actually is because there are two distinct types and they require different chemistry to break down.
06:48Grease clogs are lipid based. Fatty acid chains from cooking oil, skin oil, and soap residue.
06:56They cool inside your pipes and congeal on the pipe walls. Over weeks and months, the grease layer thickens
07:04until the pipe diameter narrows enough that water cannot pass. The chemistry to dissolve grease is called
07:12saponification. A strong alkaline base converts the fatty acids into a water-soluble soap. The grease literally
07:20turns into soap that washes away. Hair clogs are protein-based, specifically keratin, the same protein that builds your hair
07:31and fingernails.
07:32Hair gets caught on small pipe edges, mats together, and traps debris. The chemistry to break down hair is called
07:41protein hydrolysis.
07:42A strong enough alkaline pH separates the molecular bonds in the keratin protein. The hair literally breaks apart.
07:52Both clog types respond to high alkaline pH. That is why sodium hydroxide at pH 14 works on both. But
08:02pH 14 is also what damages your pipes.
08:06Here is the key chemistry, plainly. You do not need pH 14 to do these reactions. You need an alkaline
08:14pH high enough to saponify
08:17grease and break keratin bonds. That happens at pH 11. Anywhere from pH 11 to pH 14 does the work.
08:27And pH 11 is gentle enough to do
08:30no damage to your pipes. That is where the $2 mineral comes in. The mineral, sodium carbonate, also called
08:39washing soda. The chemical name is sodium carbonate. The formula is NaScent2CO3. The common name on the grocery
08:50grocery store box is washing soda is washing soda, and it has been sitting on American grocery store shelves
08:55since 1846. Washing soda has a pH of 11.4, alkaline enough to saponify grease, alkaline enough to break
09:06keratin bonds in hair, not high enough to corrode PVC, cast iron, copper, galvanized steel,
09:15or any common residential plumbing material. It is extracted from a naturally occurring mineral
09:22deposit called trona ore, a sedimentary mineral mined primarily in Wyoming and Southern California
09:29in the United States. The deposits date back tens of thousands of years and contain billions of
09:36tons of the mineral. Arm & Hammer has manufactured washing soda commercially since the 1840s. The same
09:44box with minor packaging updates has been sitting on the cleaning aisle of every American grocery store
09:51for over 100 years. This is not baking soda. I want to be plain about that because this is the
09:58single point
09:59most folks miss. Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate, NaHCO3, pH 8.3. It looks identical to washing soda on the
10:12shelf.
10:13The boxes look almost the same. But baking soda is not alkaline enough to saponify grease or break down hair.
10:22That is why most homemade drain cleaner recipes that use baking soda alone fail completely. Folks try it,
10:31nothing happens, and they go right back to the orange bottle. Washing soda is the active ingredient.
10:38Baking soda plays a supporting role in the recipe, but the real work is done by the sodium carbonate.
10:46Look for washing soda on the box label, not baking soda. Before I walk through the recipe and the method,
10:55let me pause for a moment. Every home has leaks. Food, heat, water, electricity, laundry, repairs, and waste.
11:06Inside our Amish home saving system and community, Esther and I help you find those leaks and start fixing them
11:14one by one. The link is in the description. Now, the recipe, the method, and the honest scope, plainly.
11:23The recipe, the dry clog powder. The materials list. Total cost under $10 for 50 treatments.
11:34One box of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda, 55 ounce box, available at any grocery store, about $5.
11:43dollars. One bag of Arm & Hammer baking soda, 2 pound bag, about $3 to $4. One bag of coarse
11:52pickling or
11:53kosher salt, about $1 to $2. A clean glass mason jar with lid for storage. Total cost, about $10.
12:04dollars. That makes enough clog powder for approximately 50 drain treatments. Per treatment
12:11cost, roughly 20 cents. The recipe, plainly. Half a cup of washing soda. Half a cup of baking soda.
12:211 quarter cup of coarse salt. Mix dry in a clean glass mason jar. Seal with the lid. Store under
12:32the sink
12:32or in the pantry. The mixture has no expiration date, no potency loss, no spoilage concerns.
12:40The jar will sit there ready for 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, if needed.
12:47The method. Standard maintenance and moderate clogs. For a kitchen sink, bathroom sink, or shower drain
12:56that is slow but still flowing, use this method. Step 1. Pour the dry powder into the drain. Half a
13:05cup of
13:05the clog powder mixture directly down the drain opening. Do not run any water first. The dry powder
13:12needs to make contact with the grease and hair on the inside walls of the pipe. If you have water
13:19already pooled around the drain, scoop out as much as you can with a cup before applying the powder.
13:26Step 2. Pour 1 cup of boiling water slowly over the powder.
13:31Boiling water from a kettle slowly poured over the powder. The hot water activates the alkaline
13:38reaction. You will hear a slight fizz, possibly see some bubbling at the drain opening. That is the
13:45powder beginning to dissolve and the alkaline solution beginning to coat the inside of your pipe.
13:52Step 3. Let it sit completely undisturbed for 20 minutes. Do not run any water during this time.
14:01The alkaline solution needs uninterrupted contact time with the grease and hair on the pipe walls.
14:0820 minutes is the minimum. Longer is better. If you are dealing with a particularly stubborn slow drain,
14:16let it sit for 30 to 40 minutes. Step 4. Flush with one full kettle of boiling water. Pour the
14:25entire
14:25kettle of boiling water down the drain. This washes away the saponified grease, the broken down hair,
14:33and any residual powder. The drain should now be flowing freely. If it is still slow, repeat the
14:40entire process once. For severe blockages where no water is flowing at all, use the standing water method
14:48below. The standing water method, when the drain is fully blocked. For situations where the sink is
14:55fully backed up and water will not move at all, add one step to the recipe. Step 1. Scoop out
15:03as much
15:04standing water as you can from around the drain. The powder needs to make contact with the clog,
15:09not float on top of standing water. Step 2. Pour the half cup of clog powder directly down the drain.
15:18Step 3. Pour one quarter cup of plain white distilled vinegar directly onto the dry powder.
15:26This step is the difference between the maintenance version and the unblocking version. When the vinegar
15:31meets the baking soda in the powder, carbon dioxide gas is released through a real acid-base reaction.
15:39You will hear the fizz. You will see bubbling at the drain opening. That gas pressure physically
15:45expands inside the blockage, fracturing the debris mat from the inside. At the same time,
15:52the washing soda dissolved in the vinegar solution is chemically attacking the grease and hair.
15:58Two mechanisms working at the same time. Physical fracturing and chemical breakdown.
16:05This is the same principle used in industrial pipe descaling operations. Step 4. Let it sit for 30 minutes.
16:14Step 5. Flush with one full kettle of boiling water. Repeat once if needed.
16:21For most household clogs, two applications clear even a fully blocked drain.
16:27The Honest Scope. What this method can and cannot do. I want to be straight with you about the limits,
16:34because the catalog's credibility depends on Honest Scope. This method works for maintenance clogs,
16:42grease buildup in kitchen sinks, hair clogs in bathroom drains, soap scum buildup, food debris,
16:49and the routine slow drain problems that account for the vast majority of household clog situations.
16:56Probably 90% of the times folks reach for an orange bottle. This method does not work for severe blockages
17:04caused by a foreign object stuck in the pipe. A child's toy, a piece of jewelry, a wad of paper,
17:12tree roots growing into your sewer line, collapsed or broken pipes, fully solidified industrial-grade grease
17:19deposits from long-term neglect. For those situations, you need a professional plumber.
17:25No homemade method, and frankly, no commercial drain cleaner either, handles those problems.
17:32If you have used the washing soda method twice on the same drain and it has not cleared the blockage,
17:39call a plumber. Do not escalate to commercial drain cleaners. Pouring sodium hydroxide on top of an
17:46unresolved clog often makes the problem worse. The cleaner sits in standing water above the blockage,
17:53damaging the pipe for hours while accomplishing nothing. The honest math, plainly. Most household
18:00clogs are maintenance issues. The washing soda method handles them at one-tenth the cost of commercial
18:07products with no pipe damage. Severe clogs are plumber issues. The washing soda method does not
18:14handle them, but neither does the commercial cleaner, so you save the seven dollars and the plumber visit
18:20becomes the same plumber visit either way. The monthly maintenance routine, the trick that means you never
18:27see a serious clog again. This is the most valuable section of the video because it solves the problem
18:33permanently rather than reactively. Once a month, pour one quarter cup of the dry powder down every drain
18:41in your house. Kitchen sink, both bathroom sinks, shower, tub, laundry drain. Follow each one with one cup
18:50of hot tap water, not boiling, just hot. Let it sit for 10 minutes. Flush with hot water. That 30
18:58second routine,
18:59per drain, once a month, strips the grease and soap film layer before it has time to accumulate into a
19:06clog.
19:07The drain stays clean. No build up. No slow down. No standing water emergencies. A standard plumber visit
19:15for a routine drain snake job runs between 150 and 250 dollars. With monthly washing soda maintenance,
19:24that call simply does not happen. The math compounds. Annual savings. Somewhere between 100 and 300 dollars
19:32per household, depending on how often your specific plumbing tends to clog.
19:38Esther's grandmother kept her drains clear this way for 60 years. She did not call it maintenance. She just
19:44poured a small handful of washing soda down each drain on the first Saturday of every month, ran hot water,
19:52and got on with the rest of the household work. The drains stayed clear. The plumber visit never came.
20:00Other uses for the same five dollar box. The same box of washing soda has at least five other household
20:08uses.
20:09I will cover them briefly here and dedicate full videos to the strongest ones in the future.
20:15Hard water deposits on shower glass and chrome fixtures. The white mineral film that no spray cleaner truly dissolves.
20:26Mix washing soda with warm water into a paste. Apply with a cloth. Three minutes of contact. Wipe clean.
20:36Homemade laundry detergent. The base ingredient in nearly every traditional laundry powder recipe.
20:43Washing soda combined with grated bar soap and borax makes a complete laundry powder for about 10 cents per
20:52load instead of the 80 cent commercial alternative. I will cover the full laundry recipe in the next video.
21:00Greasy pots and pans. Sprinkle washing soda directly on the burnt or greasy surface. Add hot water. Let soak
21:10overnight. Scrubs off in the morning with minimal effort. Outdoor drains, patios, and garage floor.
21:19Double the salt in the recipe and double the washing soda. Clears leaf sludge, algae,
21:27and organic debris from outdoor drains without a pressure washer. Oil stains on concrete driveways.
21:35Sprinkle dry washing soda over the stain. Wet slightly. Let sit overnight. Sweep up the next day.
21:44The oil lifts. One mineral. Six applications. The same five dollar box.
21:52Now I want to take a moment because here is where it all comes together. Look at what we have
21:59walked
21:59through. The chemistry of commercial drain cleaners. Sodium hydroxide, sodium hypochlorite,
22:07aluminum flakes. Designed to work fast and known to damage pipes over time. The chemistry of the two clog
22:16types. Grease saponifies under alkaline conditions. Hair breaks down under alkaline conditions. Both respond
22:25to pH 11 through 14. The two dollar mineral that delivers the same chemistry safely. Sodium carbonate.
22:35Washing soda. pH 11.4. Mined in America since 1846. Gentle enough to protect every common pipe material.
22:46The recipe. Washing soda. Baking soda. Coarse salt. Dry mixed in a mason jar. The maintenance method.
22:57The standing water method. The monthly routine. Every step verified by real plumbing science.
23:05The chemistry of saponification is real. The chemistry of protein hydrolysis is real. The pH levels are real and
23:14measurable. The arm and hammer manufacturing history is over a hundred years documented. None of this is
23:22invented. It is recovered from an old American household tradition that sat quiet while commercial
23:30cleaning products replaced the simple folk methods. The honest math is plain. A household that buys six
23:38bottles of commercial drain cleaner per year spends about 45 dollars on the orange bottle alone. Add the
23:47occasional plumber visit for damage that the commercial cleaner caused another 150 to 300 dollars every few years.
23:57The washing soda alternative costs 10 dollars for two years of maintenance plus emergency treatments.
24:05Annual household savings, conservatively, about 50 to 100 dollars per year every year,
24:13plus the avoided plumbing damage over the long term. There is no money in the drain cleaner industry in
24:22teaching folks that a four dollar box of mineral powder does the same job as a seven dollar bottle of
24:29chemical that damages their pipes. There is a great deal of money in selling families a recurring product
24:36every two months forever that creates the very damage that requires further repair. So the simple old mineral
24:45sits quiet on the cleaning aisle three feet away from the commercial bottle and most American families pay
24:52seven dollars again and again for what two dollars and twenty minutes of patience would have done better.
24:59You can be the one who never paid. So here is what I want you to do. This week drive
25:07to the grocery
25:07store and pick up one box of Arm & Hammer super washing soda, one bag of baking soda, and one
25:15bag of coarse
25:16pickling or kosher salt. Total cost about ten dollars. Mix the recipe in a clean glass mason jar.
25:24Half a cup of washing soda, half a cup of baking soda, quarter cup of salt. Store under the sink.
25:32This weekend, if you have a slow drain anywhere in the house, run the standard method on it.
25:39Half a cup of the dry powder, one cup of boiling water, 20 minutes, flush with boiling water.
25:47Watch what happens. From this point forward, the first Saturday of every month, pour a quarter cup of
25:55the powder down every drain in the house. Follow with hot tap water. Let's sit 10 minutes. Flush with hot
26:03water.
26:0430 seconds per drain, once a month. The orange bottle never comes home again.
26:1130 seconds per hour. Tell me in the comments below, what is the worst drain clog you have ever dealt
26:17with,
26:17and how much did it cost to fix? And if your mother or grandmother had her own household drain method
26:24we did not cover, the salt and boiling water flush, the metal coat hanger trick, the boiling water and
26:31dish soap method, share the family memory. The little inherited methods are exactly the kind of
26:37knowledge that gets lost when nobody writes them down. I read every single one.
26:44Next video. Since today we covered washing soda for drains, the next walks you through how ester makes
26:51our homemade laundry detergent using the same five dollar box. Same mineral, different application,
26:5910 cents per load instead of 80 cents at the grocery store. The full recipe, the technique, the cost math.
27:07Subscribe so you do not miss it. Until then, buy the box, mix the powder, store the jar under the
27:15sink,
27:16run the monthly routine on the first Saturday of every month, and remember that a four dollar mineral
27:22mined in Wyoming since 1846 has been sitting on the cleaning aisle of every American grocery store
27:30the whole time you were buying seven dollar bottles of chemical that damaged your pipes. That is how the
27:37careful old folks kept their houses running before the commercial cleaning aisle existed. That is how it
27:45is still done in any house that remembers.
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