Will Clorox clear a drain? Can you pour bleach down the sink?

The laundry room is where most households have a bottle of Clorox bleach sitting on a shelf.It can be used to make a disinfecting cleaner or to whiten dirty laundry.People with pools usually have bottles of Clorox on hand to shock the pool water if it starts to turn cloudy.

If you keep a bottle of bleach on hand, you might think it's a good idea to use the Clorox to clear your drain.It won't work, and there are good reasons not to use it, especially if the drain is in a steel sink.You can use other chemicals to make a more effective drain cleaner that is just as effective as bleach.

The main ingredient in Clorox isn't free chlorine, but a chemical compound called sodium hypochlorite, which breaks down to release chlorine when it'sDiluted.Even though Clorox is a 5 percent solution of hypochlorite and water, it does expose any surface you pour it on to chlorine and that's bad for steel.

One of the most damaging chemicals is chlorine.It does this through a process that results in pitting, which can cause the sink to be dull at best and cause leaks at worst.If you do it a lot, it will happen the first time you pour bleach into a sink.

If the pipes under your sink are chrome, they're vulnerable because the chlorine in bleach can damage other metals.If you pour bleach through them, you don't want it to sit in the pipes and cause a problem.

If you use bleach to clear a drain, you will be unsuccessful.The main ingredient in Drano, sodium hypochlorite, is not as caustic and won't eat its way through solid matter in the drain.Clorox doesn't mean there's no benefit to using it.