Wednesday, October 1, 2008

I'm a plumber!!

Sort of. My tub has been stopped up for several days with the water level not going down at all. I've cleaned it, but still not any luck. I was going to call the base maintenance to snake it or buy some drano, and I remembered a non-toxic cleaning remedy that I'd wanted to try to clean out drains, a combination of baking soda and vinegar. I'm going to eventually switch most, if not all, of our cleaning supplies to home made ones - less toxicity and much less expensive. And, as far as I can tell, equally effective.

1/2 cup baking soda
1/2 cup vinegar

Pour the baking soda in first, then the vinegar.

That is the recipe, but I didn't follow it. I sprinkled in what was left of my baking soda box (about 1/3) directly into the water over the drain and then followed it with an equal amount of vinegar (I just eyeballed it). I wish Amelia hadn't been asleep because she would have loved watching what happened next. It bubbled and fizzed up like alka-seltzer and then died down. I figured nothing much was going to happen and went to bed; but not before I noticed a few air bubbles coming up from the drain. I just thought it was still part of the reaction.

This morning, much to my surprize, the tub is empty! It worked!!!

That really helps make up for the fact that I tried to put together a cheapo Walmart play tent for Amelia (that Rafe has put together before with no mishaps) and broke the rods. Amelia kept asking to play in the broken tent all day and I felt really bad that it is pretty much useless now.



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