Sometimes a clogged drain can be a mere annoyance—standing in a few inches of water that’s not properly draining down your bathtub while you shower, for example—but other times it can be hazardous to your home and your health. Preventing clogged drains is important to keep water flowing through your pipes and out to the sewage system in your area. Here are five ways your drains might get clogged, and how to prevent it from happening if possible.
1: Common Cooking Scraps
Everything from fat, cooking grease, and lard to shortening, heavy sauces, and eggshells can quickly clog the drain and lead to water backups. They are also potentially detrimental to your garbage disposal, where grease can block food from getting to the drains or eggshells and other similar items could dull the blades. Use the garbage instead, or compost your cooking scraps.
2: Coffee Grounds
There are countless places online where you can find articles about “alternate uses” for coffee grounds, and one commonly repeated—but incorrect—use is to clean your kitchen drain. The truth is that over time, coffee grounds turn into a cement-like substance that will clog the drain. Throw them in the trash instead, compost them, or use them as fertilizer in the garden.
3: Hair
It’s inevitable that hair will fall out, and it happens most often in the bathroom when someone is showering or combing and styling their hair. The end result is a lot of hair that goes down the drains in your shower and bathroom sinks, and may attach to soap scum residue and block the drain entirely. One of the best ways to prevent it from happening is to place a “screen” over the drain that will catch hair and allow you to dispose of it in the garbage, rather than allowing it to go down the drain.
4: Soap Scum
Over time the residue of soap that you use for washing dishes, washing clothes, and washing your hair and skin will build up in the pipes of your home. Since everyone uses the showers and sinks every day in your house, the soap scum buildup can quickly narrow your drains and cause clogs. It happens gradually as the soap residue builds up on the sides of the drain, but can eventually cause items to lodge in the pipes and block the flow of water entirely.
5: Common Household Items
Your drains are not built to handle large items, so when these things fall down an open sink drain, or get flushed down a toilet, they can quickly plug up your pipes. This is common in households with young children, who might be curious about what happens when they flush a toy car or similar item down the toilet, and often it will require the help of a professional plumber to unclog your drain in Utah. Simply flushing the toilet again, or trying to stick something down the toilet line will usually cause more problems.
If you have any of these issues in your drains, call a plumber in Utah to unclog your drains today.
