Clogged Drain Cleared!

Our bathroom sink was slow to drain, probably from years of soap buildup.  We have a septic tank and I am not a fan of pouring in harsh chemicals like Drain-O, so I looked online and found this clog busting recipe of things I had on hand.  

1 cup baking soda
1 cup white vinegar
1 gallon of hot water.

First put the baking soda into the drain. Follow it with the vinegar. It will react with the soda and fizzle. Let it stand for a couple of minutes then pour the boiling water down the drain.

I put a gallon of water on the stove to boil and went straight to work. Our sink has a permanent drain stopper, so I pushed what I could down the little opening and then poured the vinegar, using my fingers to push the bubbling baking soda down the drain.  One more slosh of vinegar was all it took for the mixture to clear the sink.  While that rested, I waited for the big pot of water to boil, maybe five minutes.

When I poured in the hot water, I could hear bubbly noises from the vinegar-soda solution, but I didn't get that big whoosh of water drainage that I expected.  Maybe the hot water needed to sit in the trap for a while to melt the clog, so I put another pot of water on to boil and tried again.  The second pot of water went down a little faster.  The third pot was the charm!

I wonder if I could have saved my soda and vinegar and just flushed the pipes with boiling water?  I hope I didn't hurt the PVC.

Yes, we could have taken out the trap and cleaned it, but that would have involved emptying the storage stuff from the cabinet.  Plus - YUCK - who wants to do that??