Clogged drains are a common plumbing problem in most homes. From time to time, homeowners deal with clogged drains, and brushing off the early signs of it may lead to bigger problems which will cost a lot of your resources. Clogged drains can give you a lot of headaches especially in cases where you have a lot of guests at home.
Instead of dealing with the aftermath, there are ways to prevent clogged drains from happening and minimize its frequency. Knowing how to prevent this plumbing issue will also keep your plumbing in better condition. But first, you must familiarize yourself with what causes clogged drains.
Causes of Clogged Drains
Toilet pipes and kitchen drains get blocked due to a number of things, but the primary cause of it is when people put things that aren’t supposed to be down their drain. Pipes from kitchen sinks get blocked when various food scraps like grease, vegetable scraps, fruit peels, tea leaves, and more get thrown down the drain.
These common blockage materials usually pose a huge problem when your sink gets clogged up from all the gunk that has settled and solidified in the pipe. For CCTV pipes, you’re also going to need a CCTV pipe inspection regularly. If it reaches this point, a professional plumber takes over and replaces the pipe with a new one.
Preventing Clogged Drains
Here are simple ways that you can practice for you to avoid clogged drains and prevent blockage in your pipes.
Keep food scraps out of kitchen drains
All leftover food and food scraps should be disposed of properly in the trash or in a compost heap. Also, make it a habit not to wash away used coffee grounds, tea leaves, and leftover grease or fat down the kitchen drain.
Don’t pour grease down the drain
You might be wondering why you should even bother separating grease from other liquids when it can be easily washed away. Well, grease tends to solidify and when it cools. Warm grease easily runs down your drain but once it cools in the pipe, it starts to settle and forms a blockage.
Other stuff then gets to be stuck along with the cooled grease which ends up clogging your sink. The best way to avoid this is to not pour any grease, fat, or oil down your drain.
Clean your bathroom drain
Avoid getting hair and leftover bits of soap in your bathroom drains by installing a mesh screen or a shower drain hair catcher. It will collect all the hair and bits and pieces of soap before it clogs your shower drain. You can also opt for a shower stopper or tub stopper that already has a built-in screen to serve as a filter.
Don’t use your toilet as a trash bin
Never throw your tissues, floss, sanitary pads, and other personal care products and flush them down your toilet. Toilet pipes may seem wide from the surface, but it usually narrows down and that’s where the gunk usually settles and where the blockage starts. Additionally, many of these products don’t decompose easily and worsens the water quality that treatment facilities have to deal with.
