How to Clear a Clogged Drain

Here’s the short version: work from gentlest to strongest. Pour boiling water down the drain first. If that doesn’t do it, try a cup of baking soda followed by a cup of vinegar. Still slow? Reach for a plunger or a drain snake. Most minor clogs give up somewhere in that sequence. The ones that don’t are telling you something — the blockage is farther down the line than a home fix can reach.

Clogs are almost always the same handful of culprits: hair, grease, soap scum, and food scraps that collect on the walls of your pipe until water can barely squeeze past. Here’s how to clear them, in the order we’d try ourselves.

Boil a Pot of Water

The simplest fix is often the first one worth trying. Bring a pot or kettle of water to a boil and pour it slowly down the drain in two or three stages, giving it a few seconds between pours. The heat softens and loosens the soap and grease that cause a lot of minor kitchen and bathroom clogs, and it flushes the loosened gunk down the line.

One caution: only do this with metal or ceramic fixtures. Boiling water can soften or warp PVC piping and shouldn’t be poured into a porcelain toilet bowl, which can crack. If your sink drains but slowly, this alone sometimes solves it.

Create a Baking Soda and Vinegar Mixture

If hot water alone doesn’t cut it, go to the pantry. Pour about one cup of baking soda down the drain, then immediately follow it with one cup of white vinegar. The two react and fizz, and that reaction helps break down grease and lift debris off the pipe walls.

Let it sit and work for 15 to 20 minutes, then flush the drain with boiling water. This is our favorite non-chemical option because it’s cheap, it’s already in most kitchens, and it won’t damage your plumbing. It’s worth repeating once if the first round makes partial progress.

Try a Plunger

A plunger uses suction and pressure to dislodge a clog, and it works on more than toilets. For a sink or tub, remove the stopper and stuff a wet cloth into the overflow opening so the plunger can build proper suction. Then position the cup over the drain, make sure there’s enough water to cover the rim, and plunge firmly several times.

For a toilet, use a flanged toilet plunger rather than the flat cup kind — the flange seals the bowl’s outlet and gives you real force. Make sure the bowl has enough water to cover the plunger head before you start. If the water level is already high, wait or bail some out first so you don’t make a mess.

Use a Drain Snake

When the clog is physical — a wad of hair, say — no amount of hot water will dissolve it. That’s where a drain snake, also called an auger, earns its keep. You feed the flexible cable into the drain until it reaches the blockage, then turn the handle to either break the clog apart or hook it and pull it back out.

Snakes come in different sizes, from short hand augers for a bathroom sink to longer cables for a tub or shower drain. Honest note: a basic hand snake is inexpensive and genuinely DIY-friendly for a clog you can reach. If you’re snaking the same drain every few weeks, though, the real problem is deeper in the line, and pulling out the snake again won’t fix that. That’s a sign to check whether your main drain is clogged.

Consider Hydro Jetting Services

For severe or recurring clogs, professional hydro jetting is the strongest tool we carry. It sends a high-pressure stream of water through the pipe to blast apart what a snake can only poke a hole through — hardened grease, years of buildup, even tree roots that have grown into the line. Where a snake clears a path, jetting scours the pipe walls back to bare metal or plastic.

Not every clog needs it, and we’ll tell you if a simpler fix will do. If you’re weighing your options, we broke down snaking vs. hydro jetting so you know which one fits your situation. And if your home has an accessible main drain cleanout, clearing a deep clog is faster and cleaner for everyone.

One Thing to Skip: Chemical Drain Cleaners

Reach past the bottle of liquid drain cleaner on the store shelf. Most of them rely on sodium hydroxide (lye) or sulfuric acid to dissolve a clog, and that same chemistry slowly corrodes your pipes — especially older metal and PVC. They can also sit on top of a solid clog without clearing it, leaving a caustic pool that makes any follow-up work more dangerous. The baking soda and vinegar route does the gentle chemical work without the damage.

Clear Your Clogged Drains With Degree of Comfort

When the home fixes stop working, Degree of Comfort handles drain cleaning across Cincinnati and the surrounding Tri-State, including Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana. We’re family-owned, licensed and insured, with upfront, flat-rate pricing and a satisfaction guarantee — so you know the number before we start, not after.

Tired of a drain that won’t stay clear? Call (513) 586-5107 or request a free estimate and we’ll find the real cause instead of just poking at the symptom.