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As long as it does the job. If it stays in the pipes it's awful. It's also possible to get heat build up with the stronger chemicals as they react with water producing heat. That can be enough to cause a problem with plastic fittings.
Just a word of warning about the strong stuff. I do have a bottle of one shot but it's lasted 15 years so far.Something like this a great starting point for any unblocking. You can suck and blow with it making it way more versatile than a plunger. Also useful if you are dealing with pipes full of acid!!
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drain-Unblocker-Powerful-Blockages-Chemicals/dp/B08H5LZPBG?
Try boiling water before you try chemicals, sometimes it's a build up of soap which can be broken down by a combination of simple methods. Worth trying to get access to the trap though as mechanical removal is by far the best method.
Airhead-
Yeah, I've had results with those mechanical things too.
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We had a blocked waste pipe last year and had to get a plumber out. Sink wouldn't empty. Waste pipe went sink -> trap -> outflow from washing machine -> main waste pipe.
First tried the device above and that made a very slight improvement (water level started to drop but very very slowly).
Plumber then removed the trap and used a wet-vac on the pipe. Got a few big solid chunks that he said was most likely due to fabric softener use. But even with those out it was still not flowing anywhere near properly.
In the end he used the HG equivalent of that One-Shot stuff. It's generally just ~91% Sulfuric Acid. Also not straight forward to get hold of if not a tradie. Very nasty stuff if mishandled.
Indeed, he ended up having to suck some of it out with his wet-vac and although he said the wet-vac could handle it, the hose couldn't and he ended up melting some of the hose. Luckily he noticed and was able to quickly get the hose onto an old towel and into the wet-vac itself. Fuck knows how he disposed of that in the end. Not my problem.
I guess he didn't give it long enough to work because a few minutes later the blockage was all but gone and everything was flowing freely.
The waste pipe had a slight horizontal section where it went through an internal wall and then through the exterior wall to a vertical soil pipe. (This is an Edwardian house that's been converted into flats so this was unlikely to be an original kitchen location.) If we ever get to do a new kitchen then I'll hopefully remember that the waste pipes need sorting.
Plumber also recommended a 6-month application of the generally available drain unblocker, which should keep things in check. This was the first time we'd had a problem with a blocked waste pipe in the 16 years we'd lived there.
Howard
Greenbank
I asked the site team today and apparently this is the shit! https://www.fulcare.co.uk/product/one-shot-drain-cleaner-1ltr/ they claim it never fails.