There are few things more frustrating at home than clogged drains. Often, you are not able to solve the problem yourself and end up having to call in the experts to get it all sorted out. Prevention is always going to be far better than the cure. This is the theory that we are going to be putting into practice in the following blog post with a few ways to prevent clogged drains.
Don’t Throw Common Blockers Down the Drain
There are some items that cause a sewer backup in your home more frequently than others, and it is these that you should get into the habit of getting rid of in another manner. For example, you should save your cooking grease in another container, and either use it for something else or throw it away. As for your coffee grounds, these should either go directly into the trash or be added onto your mulch pile. If you do not have a garbage disposal in your sink, you should avoid throwing anything too bulky down there. Instead, it needs to be scraped into the bin.
Use a Screen on the Drain
A screen or a drain-gate is a small but useful piece of equipment that you can use to cover up the opening of the drain and cut back on anything too big from getting sucked down there. Check out your local plumbing supply store to ensure that you pick up the right piece of equipment. Many of them do not take any installation work and can simply be laid in place.
Run Hot Water Down the Drain
The simple act of running hot water down the drain after every use helps to keep everything that you have poured down there moving smoothly. Otherwise, it can end up building up on the surfaces of the pipes over time. As a result, this can seriously slow down the flow of water down the drain, resulting in clogs further down the line. This is such a simple thing that you can do, but it can also help out in a big way.
Use Baking Soda and Vinegar
A couple of other solutions that can seriously help out in the task of keeping water running through your pipes smoothly are baking soda and vinegar. Starting with the former, you just need to throw a handful down, followed up by some hot water. This is a great solution that can help to absorb odors. Another alternative is to pour down a cup of hot vinegar. You can then leave it to set for a period of 30 minutes, chased down with some very hot water. It is an excellent solution for getting rid of the organic matter that commonly builds up in pipes.
There we have a host of different solutions which can all be enormously useful in preventing clogged drains from becoming an issue in the home. Many of them are simple and can be carried out daily.
