A Plumber’s Guide: How to Avoid a Holiday Plumbing Disaster
The holidays are the most wonderful time of the year. It allows people to join together and spend time with the ones they love, while meditating on all that they’re thankful for. But if you’re hosting guests, you’ll want to know how to get your home ready for the holidays.
While you’ll probably clean your home and fix any nagging household issues, you should consider your home’s plumbing. You might be wondering, “How do I prepare my house for holiday guests?”
When it comes to your plumbing, there are a few steps you can take, and that’s what this article will cover.
Test your toilets and drains
Before you have any guests over to your home for the holidays, go around to all the toilets and drains in your home, and make sure that they’re draining correctly. For toilets, try flushing them and watching the water drain and refill; if there’s any sort of hesitation or malfunction, don’t hesitate to call a plumber. For your sinks, run the water for several seconds and see how quickly they drain. If the sink is clogged or draining slowly, have an expert take a look.
Enforce a toilet paper-only rule
One of the leading causes of clogged toilets is people flushing items that shouldn’t ever be flushed down the toilet. These include cotton balls, baby wipes, wrappers and feminine hygiene products. Your own family might know not to flush anything other than toilet paper, but your guests may not. You could either tell your guests not to flush anything but toilet paper down the toilet or put a small sign in the bathroom to gently remind them not to send anything down that might cause a clog.
Don’t dump grease down the drain
Whether you’re cooking a Thanksgiving turkey, a Christmas ham or some other delectable holiday delicacy, keep the grease out of your drains. You can do this by saving glass jars and dumping the leftover grease you have from any cooking into said jars. Grease is terrible for your drains because it cools, hardens and eventually coagulates, creating a barrier layer that doesn’t allow your sink to drain properly.
Buy some extra trash cans
Sometimes people dump or flush materials down the drain because they don’t know where else to put them. Purchasing and placing some extra trash cans in your bathroom and kitchen can help to mitigate this dilemma. Instead of food scraps or toiletry products going down your sink or toilet, they can be safely disposed of in garbage cans.
Invest in a drain screen
Hosting the holidays means you’ll be doing more dishes than usual. One way to prevent a kitchen sink clog is to use a drain screen. This small piece of stainless steel can be found at most home improvement stores for under $5 and can be placed in your kitchen sink’s drain. It catches larger food scraps and prevents them from going down the drain. When you’re done with the dishes, you can simply pull out the screen and dump the scraps in the garbage.
Call for your plumbing needs today
Now that you know how to get your home ready for the holidays, you’ll no longer have to wonder, “How do I prepare my house for holiday guests?” For a plumbing inspection and more, call us at Orchard Plumbing, where we offer everything from water heater installation to drain repair.