apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

There is also a product advertised as biodegradable and eco-friendly that is a powder with bacteria and enzymes that you pour down with hot water for regular cleaning. You let it sit overnight and it eats at the organic material lining the inside of your pipes, which should make clogs less frequent.

theblvd - do you know the name of the product. I have long hair and the tub drain is forever getting clogged (even though I use a hair catcher). I tried the baking soda/vinegar/boiling H2O to no avail ...

I bought a Flexisnake for hair clogs. I think it was recommended on AT:NY. It's a long wire sort of thing with velcro on the end. You stick it down the drain and pull up all kinds of nasty hairy and who knows what else. It works really, really well, it's incredibly cheap, and it can be reused. Here's the site:
http://www.flexisnake.com/

Or just always empty out the drain catch every few months, makes sure nothing snakes down further in the drains and you don't get any mean nasty clogs.

The product is called Drain Care. I just get it at my local Ace Hardware. Here's the manufacturer's webpage, which shows liquid and powder versions.

I second the flexisnake type of drain de-clogger! I have long hair too, so my shower drain gets pretty slow about once a month. My drain snake has little teeth on it, and so it can pull out all the gunk in one quick swoop!

I have a plastic flexible strip with teeth on the sides that point towards the user. You just push it down into the drain (goes in easily as the backward alignment of the teeth doesn't catch) and then pull back (at which point the alignment of the teeth makes them catch the hair etc. and drag it back up.) It really works FAST and is of course reuseable.