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this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2026
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Plumbing
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You can dissolve glass with sodium hydroxide. No, I'm not making that up, and yes, eventually it would be an issue.
Also sodium hydroxide doesn't really do much of anything to pipes besides acting like a salt. Its not chemically attacking the cast iron, which is actually a pretty good material combo with NaOH.
But to answer your question yeah those kinds of pipes exist but they're used for chemistry or industrial use. You would probably need to custom order them, and have everything perfectly planned out. It also will certainly add at least 3 zeros onto your plumbing bill for materials, tools, and consumables.
most households will not dump hot, concentrated lye down the drain, regularly or even everyday, so no problem :) Thank you for the information
Just an aqeous solution is enough if it sits for long enough at a high enough concentration... like maybe pouring the equivalent of a 10M solution into your drain and letting it sit for 15 minutes, and doing that once every 2 weeks like my mom does...