6 Drain Care Mistakes Homeowners Make (and how to Avoid them)
As a fifth generation family-owned plumbing and drainage business, we are the Greater Toronto Area’s first drainage experts. For nearly a century we feel comfortable saying we have just about seen it all when it comes to drain care, including the homeowners’ mistakes when it comes to drain care. In this blog, we will be sharing the 6 most common drain care mistakes homeowners make, and how you can avoid them.
Don’t Flush That!
Of course, right? It’s the oldest piece of advice in drain care, that’s why it’s first on our list. Don’t flush anything down your toilet that isn’t waste or bathroom tissue, of course in a household with children, or running a business where guests may be careless with the facilities this advice may not always be taken to heart.
That’s a simple enough rule to follow, but I can already hear the question “What about flushable wipes, are they REALLY flushable?”
This is a great question, and one of the most common questions our drain technicians receive on the job. The answer is yes they will flush down your toilet, but this doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in the clear when using flushable wipes.
It’s important to consider the sometimes long run of horizontal drains that run from your home or business out to the street level. Where bathroom tissue is designed to break down in water, allowing it to flow freely through these long runs of pipe, flushable wipes do not break down in water, so your drainage system will struggle to carry these wipes all the way out to the city’s sewage system. Over an extended time using and flushing these wipes, we have found they will often build up in horizontal drain lines, eventually leading to a full block of your home’s drainage system.
Many home and business owners still opt to use flushable wipes. If you are one of these individuals, one step that can be taken to minimize the risk to your drains is to run as much water from the sink, or bathtub/shower if one is available. Get as much water flowing through your drains as possible to carry the wipe through the horizontal drains, and out to the city sewers. This is not a guaranteed method, as other factors, such as the type and state of your drains also play a role in their ability to move solids toward the city sewer.
We generally advise against using flushable wipes, as they are among the most common cause of drain blockages and backups we encounter.The Dangers of Chemical Drain Cleaners
Our drain technicians and dispatchers always ask if a chemical drain cleaner has been used prior to their arriving. They ask because the process of clearing a blocked drain with an electric snake can often be a messy task as the contents of the blocked drain can splash, creating a mess around the work area, as well as on the technician themselves. These messes are an unfortunate part of the job, and are easily cleaned up, but when chemical drain cleaner becomes a part of that mess, property damage and more importantly, personal safety become a concern.
A service technician running an electric snake on a drain where chemical drain cleaners have been used runs the risk of suffering burns to their skin, as well as the risk of blindness should the chemical come in contact with their eyes. In addition to the chance of personal injury, the presence of chemical drain cleaners can also damage a homeowner’s property when it comes into contact with their walls or cabinets.
The use of chemical drain cleaners can cause damage to your stainless steel sinks, as well as your home’s plumbing. If your home has copper drainage pipes, drain cleaners can cause these drain pipes to corrode, leading to further costly repairs when the corrosion causes irreparable damage to your drainage system.
Furthermore to the damage drain cleaners can cause your own plumbing, they are also hazardous to the environment as runoff from your drainage system can end up in the local water supply. In addition, residue left in empty drain cleaner bottles usually end up in local landfills, having a detrimental effect to the wildlife and environment.
When a clogged drain in your home or business is causing you stress it may be tempting to pick up some chemical drain cleaner for a quick and affordable fix. However, these drain cleaners don’t always work, and when they don’t you will often find yourself spending more to resolve the problem than was necessary as a drain technician will have to take extra precautions to take care of their safety, as well as yours.
Even if you have used a natural, eco-friendly drain cleaner, it is ALWAYS recommended to disclose this information to your drain technician prior to beginning work.Act Fast - Don’t Ignore Slow Drains
Often a precursor to a fully blocked drain, slow drains require attention as they can be a sign of a more serious issue with your drains. When ignored, a slow drain often evolves into a larger issue.
If the situation escalates, it can leave you with a mainline clog, putting all of your plumbing out of commission. If your drains fill up with water from this clog, this can cause leaks from your drain pipes that can cause water damage to your floors, walls, ceilings, and electrical supplies.
Slow drains can either be caused by a partial block in your drain line, or a block in your drain’s vent, in either case it is best to have the situation assessed by a professional. A professional drain technician should have no problem clearing whatever may be causing a partial drain clog, however if this small situation is left to grow into a larger one, you may be looking at a longer, and more costly solution.Grease!
Perhaps another obvious tip on this list is simply DO NOT pour grease down your drains, it causes plumbing issues, and is terrible for the environment, but perhaps less obvious is exactly why this advice is so common.
When working on kitchen drains, grease is the number one culprit for our technicians. Not only is grease the most common type of kitchen line drain obstruction, but it is also the most stubborn, requiring the most work to fully clear.
There are two types of grease obstructions that can occur in your drains:
Soft Grease - Soft grease is often found in apartment building kitchen stacks (The vertical drain pipe connecting all nearby kitchen drains.) Soft grease forms in these lines because tenants pour grease down their drains. The reason the grease remains soft is because apartment building kitchen stacks are often carrying water from many tenants, preventing the grease from solidifying, though the grease will still form in the pipes and cause a clog.
Hard Grease - Hard grease is found more often in single family homes. When grease has been poured down a drain that is seldom used, it allows time for the grease to harden and solidify. In extreme cases the grease may become so hard that a drain replacement may be required.
Where a paper obstruction may have accumulated in one area of your drainage system, a grease obstruction is often present throughout a drain system. Accumulating slowly overtime, you may not even know you have a grease issue in your drains until the grease has formed a complete block in an area of your drain, by which point grease has most likely built up to a significant degree throughout other areas of your home’s plumbing.
Unlike an obstruction involving paper, or another solid object where a drain snake can be used to clear or retrieve the object blocking your drain, a drain snake cannot fully clear a grease obstruction. Even when a snake has restored regular flow to a grease-clogged drain, the grease will still be present along the walls of your drain pipes. When grease is present in your drains, it acts as a magnet for more grease, as well as food particles.
To fully clear and clean a drain that has been clogged with grease, hydro jetting (or power flushing) is required. Hydro jetting is the eco-friendly process of cleaning your drains with high-pressure water, and is the the only way to fully clear grease from your drain lines, as it will not only clear the obstruction, but clean the inside of your pipes as well.Neglecting Regular Maintenance
Your drains require proper regular maintenance to remain in working order, and while it may seem cost-effective to wait until something goes wrong before calling in the experts, you may be running the risk of causing even more problems, should water from your drains cause damage elsewhere.
If you live in a home, or manage a property around heavily forested areas, regular main drain maintenance may be recommended on a yearly or semi-yearly basis depending on the age and condition of your main drain. This is recommended because tree roots can grow through older drains creating obstacles that prevent the normal flow of water and solids through the line. These tree roots can cause even toilet tissue, which is designed to break down to form a soft paper obstruction in your drain line.
Alternatively, if you are responsible for managing an apartment building, or other multi-family dwelling, you may consider regular kitchen drain maintenance in the form of preventative hydro jetting. It is impossible to control the actions of every single tenant, some of them are going to pour grease down their drains, so it is only practical to be proactive and maintain these drains before trouble arises.D.I. Why Didn’t I Call the Professionals?
We’ve all been there. Something stops working, and the thought of calling a tradesman into our home creates anxiety. “They’re going to be here all day, it’s going to be noisy, they’re going to make a mess, are they going to charge me a fair price?” So instead of calling a professional, you attempt a D.I.Y. solution. You may succeed (I once unclogged my kitchen sink at an old apartment with nothing but a wrench and a fork), but you also might fail, and worse, without the proper tools and expertise, you might just make a bad situation worse.
Over the near century we have been in business, our Drain Technicians have seen all sorts of D.I.Y. fails, from sink drains that were broken after a homeowner tried plunge it without a proper sink plunger, to a simple main drain obstruction that required an excavation after the homeowner rented a piece of snaking equipment that got stuck in their drain.
Often times, these situations are best left to the professionals, this is why A Alert Drain Ltd offers 24/7 emergency service so we can be there when you need us. Call us today at (416) 244-6891.
