My House Has Gas

I don’t mean radon.

Earlier in the week, it sounded like our house had gas. Whenever we ran water, it was followed by a funny little noise; the kind that makes you want to look around, say excuse me, and then giggle uncontrollably.

Thankfully, my husband is a mechanical genius. And we have a chemist friend who clued us into the fact that drain cleaner = chlorine bleach.

When I was a kid I always thought bleach laundry was something to be avoided, on an environmental basis. But when the environment outside, in the form of tree roots, began to encroach on essential household functions, such as indoor plumbing, my pre-conceived notions came up for re-examination.

What works for us? Occasionally running a gallon or so of cheap chlorine bleach through our out-going pipes. It beats calling a plumber.

10 thoughts on “My House Has Gas”

  1. Good idea. I’ve used bleach to get rid of the little dark circles that form around the drain that don’t seem to come up with scrubbing, but I didn’t know it would clear out the pipes, too.

  2. Well, drain cleaner = chlorine bleach at a considerably higher concentration (usually), so the bleach thing is good as a routine preventative step, but if it doesn’t work, trying actual drain cleaner next isn’t necessarily a total rip-off. For the record, the active ingredient is sodium hypochlorite, same thing that goes into public swimming pools and the disinfection stage of most municipal wastewater treatment plants.

    Signed,
    Chemist/Environmental Engineer. 😉

  3. jbandmeintern: I think the bleach does hurt the roots of the tree, but not enough to create a problem for the tree. That is, it probably doesn’t hurt the roots any more than bringing in a “rooter” does.

    Mella DP: thanks for the professional opinion. 🙂

  4. Rebecca, thanks for coming by and commenting on my blog! It’s always nice to meet new people. Thanks for the tip too! Have had the problem with tree roots too, and figure it’s only a matter of time before we have it again.

    Keep up the good work, and hopefully we’ll see you around again. God bless and happy blogging!

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