In one of my frustrated McGyver moments I invented my own by cutting the end off a Cat 5 (just the right balance of stiffness and flexibility) and duct taping carefully bent paper clips. Worked pretty well too. 
Keep adding water. However long you think it should take to reasonably clear out the fluid, and then double it for good measure.
Are the pipes a concern? Yes. The more concentrated the acid, the more rapidly the acid will attack the pipes. More water = Less Problem
Then call a plumber.
Acid corrosion of iron is an oxidation reaction (Fe -> Fe3+). However, it’s not rust. Rust is a loose term referring to metal oxides. Hydrochloric acid will dissolve and remove “rust” actually. We use the word “oxidation” in scientific chemistry more loosely than when the term was first coined. In it’s original sense, water and oxygen often cause materials to corrode by “adding oxygen” to them. Now, we are more specific.
Mixing acid and base produces heat. The “violence” is a consequence of the heat. As the concentrations are low, so will be the heat production. Neutralizing the acid as a tactic, however, will be of limited value as the chloride ion concentration is probably not much better for old metal pipes than dilute acid.
If the acid is strong enough to require neutralization then choosing sodium bicarbonate as the base of choice will result in a hideous mess. But, on the plus side, it would be a hoot to watch, so by all means rent a video camera.
It will immediately precipiate silver chloride which is about as water soluble as granite. If he is lucky it will wash through and remove the chloride ions from the iron pipes. If he is unlucky, it will block the drain the rest of the way still leaving it exposed to the, acidic, solution.
I don’t think I’d be willing to roll those dice on my own pipes, but I’d love to watch someone else try it.
They work great for a while. As the original poster noted, Drano is caustic based. Each time you use this, most of the clog will wash down, and it will start working again. However, it is not 100% effective, and that which does not wash down will harden on the insides of the pipe. Over time, the layers that Drano leaves on the pipe will thicken and thicken.
Acid cleaners are worse because of the aggressive attack on most pipe materials.
But the important thing to remember is that just because it works right now does not mean it is a good long term solution. Drano is a short-sighted solution. Call a plumber.
Do not mix, dispose, or make use of chemicals IN IGNORANCE. Learn, then do.
Gloves.
Yep. For awhile I was so fascinated by the tribbles that I forgot to be grossed out. Then I started pulling up pieces of … I don’t know what it was. I’m hoping it was flecks of soap. But that snapped me back to reality pretty quickly.
One of the appartments we lived in had a big problem with clogged drains, especially in the kitchen. However, since it was a rental, we generally opted to have the maintenance people unclog the drains–after all, maintenance was part of the contract for the appartment, and they were their pipes, not ours. We also never put anything in a drain or disposal that shouldn’t have been there. We knew not to put chicken bones or artichoke leaves or celery into a disposal, for example.
In this particular apartment, though, the maintenance guys typically used Draino (or Draino knockoffs). I remember one time when an employee who had been there a while was showing a new employee the ropes, the new guy said he thought Draino was bad for the pipes. The long-time guy told him that yeah, the stuff was bad for the pipes, but by the time the damage was done, the pipes would probably be old enough to need replacing anyway.
When we bought our own house, we also bought a pipe snake, so that we could clear the pipes without resorting to chemicals that could potentially damage the pipes.
Thanks, Excalibre, for coming in, AGAIN, and answering things that I finally have some experience in before I have a chance to read it.
Like he said, if you get any on your skin, you’ll feel the slipperiness on your skin (because it made soap of you!) and then it will start to itch a bit. You’ll notice, for sure, before it starts burning your skin. In the lab, we’re never like OMFG DON’T TOUCH THAT HCL IT’S 12M!!!.
An easy way to do this all in one post is open up another browser window (or tab, preferably, but I’m assuming IE like the majority of the world), and then copy/paste everything that you want to quote into one reply, it makes it easier for us to follow who’s replying. Or it makes it easier for me, but I approve of you doing either.
I prefer replying to one post at a time. I seem to like it when someone bothers to reply to my post, so I figured others liked that also. But only for one or two posts, never for 10 in a row. That’s just a bit too much like post-count-padding.
When an acid reacts with an elemental metal, it raises the oxidation number of the metal from zero to a positive number (the oxidation number of the cation in the salt). This is equivalent to the a loss of electrons by the metal, which is oxidation. Therefore, the metal is oxidized.
Defining “oxidation” to be only a reaction that produces an oxide is a notion that is at least a century out of date.
You were right the first time.