Four Ways to Prevent Plumbing Issues
Plumbing issues can be disastrous for your household, as leaks and clogs can disrupt the flow of wastewater and can even cause significant amounts of water damage inside your home. Fortunately, there are a handful of habit changes and things that you can do to reduce the risk of experiencing plumbing issues in your home.
Install Drain Strainers
One of the simplest and most effective ways to prevent clogs in your drains in both your kitchen and your bathroom is by installing a metal or plastic strainer over the drain itself. These strainers can be found in various sizes at most hardware stores and fit directly into the drain. You'll simply have to remove the strainer and clean it out by hand every so often, depending on how much use that specific drain sees, to ensure water is still able to drain properly.
Use the Trash, not the Disposal
Your garbage disposal is designed to grind up food items before they are drained in order to prevent clogs from occurring. However, placing an undue amount of food waste into your disposal and relying on it as your primary method of disposing of food waste can still lead to issues. Furthermore, garbage disposals are unable to properly remove specific food items, including stringy foods like vegetables and items like grease that can harden when they cool down. Instead, scrape your plates into the garbage before you rinse them off.
Only Flush Toilet Paper
In a somewhat related vein, you should also make sure that the only thing being flushed down your toilet is toilet paper and waste. Anything else, even paper products that say that they are flushable, can have trouble breaking apart in your plumbing and can lead to clogs and damage to your plumbing. Just be sure to throw things out instead.
Avoid Chemical Cleaners
Another way to avoid plumbing problems, especially leaks and corrosion damage, is to completely avoid commercial drain unclogging solutions. While these cleaners may be effective at removing organic matter that collects in your kitchen and bathroom drains, they also can cause damage to your plumbing and corrode your pipes, making leaks more likely and weakening connections. Try more diluted solutions, like a cup of vinegar or bleach mixed into a gallon of water, to remove clogs, and switch to using a drain snake in the event that a clog proves to be particularly stubborn.
Call a plumbing contractor today for more tips and tricks like these.