2019 test7 productsShop Chemicals & Lubricants
Which Drain Opener Brand Wins?
A head-to-head test of 7 drain opener options with the measured results for each. See how they ranked and watch the full test video.
Ranked first
Drano Max Gel Pro Strength
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The measured results
Every number below is read straight from the test. Scroll sideways to see all measurements. Products are listed in the order they finished.
| Product | Hair 45 min | Hair 12 hr | Grease | Vegetables | Paper towel and tape | Corrosion (steel pipe, nail, PVC) | Extended Pyrex retest (50 percent mix, 15 min) | Mixing observation | Hair | Extended Pyrex retest (undiluted, higher dose, 15 min) | Extended Pyrex retest (3 hr) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1Drano Max Gel Pro Strength | did not dissolve the soap or the dog hair | did a little bit better job than Liquid Plumber; earned an A grade with Liquid Plumber and Lye, most effective at dissolving hair | did a little bit better job with the bacon grease along with Liquid Plumber; final assessment groups Draino with Liquid Plumber, Clobber, and muriatic acid as effective on grease | no visible damage to vegetables | no apparent damage | no visible damage at 45 min; final assessment: showed a very small amount of corrosion on the steel pipe; no damage to PVC | dog hair definitely starting to disappear, described as doing a very good job dissolving hair; no apparent damage to nail; did not dissolve carrot | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested |
| 2Liquid Plumr Pro Strength (Liquid-Plumr) | did not dissolve the soap or the dog hair | didn't seem to do very well at dissolving the hair per the play-by-play, but the closing letter-grade summary places Liquid Plumber in the A group with Drano and Lye for hair | described as about the same as Drano; grouped in final assessment as effective on grease with Drano, Clobber, and muriatic acid | no visible damage | no apparent damage | no visible damage at 45 min; final assessment: showed a very small amount of corrosion on the steel pipe; no damage to PVC | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested |
| 3Lye | starting to dissolve the dog hair | did by far the best of all products tested, totally dissolving all of the hair | quite a bit of grease remained at the bottom of the cup; final assessment groups Lye with Drain Stix and Roebic as less effective on grease | color of vegetables looked a little different but not dissolved; no dissolving observed at 12 hr | no damage | no damage to metal or PVC at 45 min; final assessment: did not cause any corrosion to the steel pipe or the nail | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested |
| 4Roebic Granular Drain and Trap Cleaner | not tested | not tested | did not seem to have done much; grouped as less effective on grease with Lye and Drain Stix | no impact | no impact | no impact on steel, nail, or PVC | not tested | mixed fairly well, but large particles did not seem to fully dissolve | no impact observed on dog hair; grouped with biological products that did not seem to work | not tested | not tested |
| 5Drain Stix | not tested | not tested | just seemed to dye the grease blue; grouped as less effective on grease with Lye and Roebic | not tested | no impact besides coloring | no impact on paper towel, metal, or PVC besides coloring | not tested | began to dissolve fairly quickly, turning the water blue | still dissolving, had not dissolved any of the hair after 45 min; no dissolving observed at 12 hr | not tested | not tested |
| 6Muriatic Acid 31.45 percent hydrochloric acid | did not seem to dissolve the hair or vegetables, but did a pretty good job on the grease | did a better job thinning the hair than sulfuric acid, but not as good as lye; final letter grade B for hair (needed strong concentration over hours to be effective) | Clorox (the sulfuric acid product) did a better job than muriatic acid at dissolving grease, though muriatic acid is still grouped as effective on grease in the final assessment | no dissolving observed; narrator speculates hydrochloric acid would do a little better with a higher acid percentage | no impact | began removing rust from the nail and removing plating from the pipe at 45 min, described as highly corrosive; final assessment: quite a bit of corrosion; no damage to PVC | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested | not tested |
| 7Clobber sulfuric acid, professional strength | diluted mix did not have much impact on hair, vegetables, grease, or paper towel, but began removing rust from the nail | thinned the hair a little, less than muriatic acid and lye; final letter grade B for hair (needed strong concentration over hours to be effective) | grouped as effective on grease in the final assessment alongside Drano, Liquid Plumber, and muriatic acid | the only product that showed any effect at all on vegetables (small amount of progress) in the 45 min to 12 hr round | not tested | removed rust from the nail and removed plating from the pipe, described as highly corrosive; final assessment: quite a bit of corrosion | not tested | not tested | not tested | explicitly credited with removing all rust from the nail (very good job, but highly corrosive) and eating into the carrot | explicitly credited with dissolving most of the hair and nearly totally dissolving the asparagus; carrot smaller and appeared greenish |
How it was tested
- hair and soap dissolving test at 45 minutes and again at 12 hours
- bacon grease dissolving test
- vegetable (carrot, asparagus) dissolving test
- foreign object test (paper towel, tape)
- metal pipe, rusty nail, and PVC corrosion/damage test
- extended concentrated retest in Pyrex containers (Drano 50 percent mix vs full-strength sulfuric acid) on dog hair, rusty nail, carrot, and asparagus at 15 minutes and 3 hours
Data notes and caveats
No single overall winner: video closes with per-use-case recommendations, hair or bathroom clogs favor Liquid Plumber, Drano, or Lye, while kitchen grease or solid clogs favor acid (with a caution that acid is highly corrosive to metal plumbing and garbage disposals). Chapters (Drano, Bacon Grease, Drain sticks/Roebic/Water) only cover 3 of 7 products, so chapterMap is false. The sulfuric acid product is listed in the description as Clobber (currently not available) but narrated as Clorox and later Clabber; resolved to Clobber per description ground truth. The extended Pyrex retest narration (lines describing the 15 minute and 3 hour checks) interleaves Drano-container and acid-container results without a labeled product for every sentence; only sentences with an explicit product name were attributed, ambiguous unlabeled sentences were omitted rather than guessed.
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