Tell me some uses for caustic soda!

[MushroomSoup]

What can I use it for? Household tips please.

Clearing drains, but not plastic!

Cleaning the limescale off toilets below the waterline. But be very very very careful - it is extremely dangerous and toxic stuff.

Ooh tell me how to the toilets please.

1. Make sure no one in the family needs to use the toilet or bathroom for a couple of hours

1. Open the window and door in the bathroom.

1. Put on heavy duty rubber gloves and one of those diy eye protector things if you have.

1. Pour caustic soda in the loo at arms length.

1. The water will boil and fizz. Close loo lid.

1. Leave it for as long as it says on the packet.

1. Flush loo couple of times before anyone uses it.

1. Hide caustic soda away in the safest and most secure place in your house - never let anyone touch it without protective measures in place.

Sounds terrifying!!

Yes, caustic soda not to be confused with soda crystals which are far more benign and can be used for all sorts of cleaning jobs.

Caustic soda will eat holes in clothes, skin and eyeballs. Why do you want to find uses for it?

Have used it to clear the kitchen sink pipes. After seeing it fizz and spit and burn a couple of little holes in the adjacent wooden worktop where it spat out of the plughole I won't have the stuff in the house again.

My FIL insists on spraying a solution of this on his driveway and garden path to kill weeds - I hate it.

It's evil stuff and I'd never use it, especially in your plumbing where it could get into the waterways.

I think I got mixed up with soda crystals :-/

ah yes, washing soda which is useful for degreasing drains and cookers (but not aluminium), desludging washing machines, adding to powder for white washes, and washing down paintwork. Is sold in green bags in supermarkets with the household cleaners.

Quite different.

Soda Crystals are different

They're great. Use in laundry to save on powder is one way I used them and pour them down the kitchen sink etc (which has plastic pipes),

Ugh, caustic soda...in my student ITU placement there was a poor soul who'd DRUNK caustic soda.

I'd keep guns rather than caustic soda in the house

Soda crystals though...love em. Makes my washing machine's foosty smell vanish