Your drains and drain pipes route all waste and wastewater out of your Bridgeport, WV home. Keeping your drains clean and moving swiftly will help you avoid foul odors, rising humidity, and widespread mildew and mold. Regular drain maintenance can also prevent recurring clogs, sewer line problems, and whole-house backups. Fortunately, Midstate Plumbing & Air makes drain maintenance easy with these six simple tips.
1. Install Drain Covers
Keep potential clogs out of your drains by installing drain sieves or drain baskets. These low-cost drain covers filter out solid items, including dropped toothbrushes, toys, and hair accessories. They also capture and retain hair. When they collect enough solid debris, you can simply lift them out and empty them. Cleaning drain covers is a lot cheaper and easier than clearing blocked drains.
2. Dispose of Grease the Correct Way
Never put cooking oils, rendered fats, or grease down your drains. All these things have a negative impact on groundwater and the local water supply.
Grease, rendered fats, and oils with lots of saturated and monounsaturated fats harden as they cool. When they do, they’ll coat the interior of your pipes and create sticky, tacky buildups. These buildups decrease the interior diameter of pipes and give waste less room to move through.
Chasing grease with hot water won’t prevent in-pipe buildups. Doing so will only move potential blockages further away from your drains and deeper into your plumbing system. When greasy water reaches your sewer line, fats will cool, harden, and adhere to the walls of your sewer pipe.
To get rid of cooking oils, hot grease, and rendered fats, let them cool. Once they’ve reached room temperature, put them in covered, heat-safe containers and toss them in the trash.
3. Schedule Annual Drain Cleaning Service
Even when you’re careful about how you dispose of grease and cooking oils, your drains and drain pipes will still develop buildups. In addition to decreasing space for water flow, these buildups attract and retain other debris. With regular use, your drains and drain pipes could develop large accumulations of:
- Soap scum
- Hair
- Body oils
- Mucus
- Grease
Despite your best efforts, drain covers won’t catch all loose strands of hair. Greasy deposits from your dishes will enter your wastewater pipes as well.
Professional drain cleaning scours off all tacky in-pipe deposits. It also breaks down stubborn blockages and flushes out trapped sediment. With drain cleaning, you can get rid of or prevent drain odors and drain gnat infestations. You can also keep your drains moving swiftly all the time. For best results, schedule professional drain cleaning service at least once each year.
4. Schedule Regular Sewer Line Inspection and Cleaning Services
The same buildups that develop in your drain pipes also develop in your sewer line. The sections of your sewer pipe that travel underground are additionally vulnerable to invasive tree roots and weeds.
All drains in your Bridgeport home converge onto your sewer pipe. When wastewater encounters buildups in your sewer pipe and slows down, every drain in your home will move slowly. If left unchecked, a sewer line blockage could eventually cause a whole-house backup. These events send effluence rushing back into houses.
To avoid whole-house backups and protect your sewer pipe, schedule sewer line cleaning and camera inspection services. Like drain cleaning, sewer line cleaning flushes out tacky buildups and breaks down stubborn blockages, including invasive tree roots. Plumbers recommend scheduling these services every 18 to 22 months.
5. Regularly Freshen Your Drains
You’ve probably heard that a mixture of equal parts white vinegar and baking soda is an effective, natural drain cleaner. When combined, these two pantry essentials create an instant foaming reaction.
This mild reaction is just strong enough to break down light buildups on and around drain openings. It’s hardly an effective substitute for professional drain cleaning. However, it’s perfect for freshening your drains in between drain cleaning services. It’s also mild enough to use weekly.
6. Be Careful About What Goes Down Your Drains
Grease isn’t the only thing that has the capacity to clog your drain pipes. Don’t let your children bathe with ultra-small toys or toys that have tiny attachments. Keep hair accessories, toothbrushes, razor caps, and other items that could slip down into your drains away from drain openings.
Don’t flush “flushable” wipes. Although companies market these popular self-care products as being safe to flush, they can cause serious clogs. The only things that you should flush down your toilets are toilet paper and human waste. Everything else should go into the trash.
Midstate Plumbing & Air provides expert drain cleaning and sewer line services. We offer water-jetting, rooter service, and sewer line camera inspections. With same-day scheduling and 24/7 emergency plumbing services, we’re the plumber to call for all your drain emergencies.
If you need help maintaining the drains in your Bridgeport home, contact Midstate Plumbing & Air today!
