HOLIDAY CHEER AND

SEWER DRAIN FEAR

By: Mick Blankenship

All caught up in the holiday spirit, you may not be aware of a disaster sneaking up behind you. We made it through Thanksgiving and things will slow down only briefly before it’s time again to get ready for guests. It’s a large task, and you’re probably not even thinking about the drainage system on which you and your guests will heavily depend. A sewage disaster in your home could undo all of your hard work trying to create cheer. What you need is a little healthy fear. A sewage disaster would not be unprovoked. You just tripled the number of people living in your home, which means three times the amount of hair in the drains, three times the possibility of someone pouring grease down a drain, and three times the possibility of a kid throwing something down the toilet that doesn’t belong. On top of all that, each person is consuming three times the quantity of food they normally would. You know what that means. Did you double or triple your plumbing before the guests came? Probably not. No, definitely not. Think of what you are asking of your drains. They’re built to handle the waste of your moderately sized family and they do so quite well. Now you are asking your drains to handle the load of three families that will each eat three times as much as normal. Consider your body’s plumbing. Imagine you normally eat three meals a day totaling 2,000 calories. Triple the number of meals you eat, that’s 6,000 calories. Now triple the amount of food you eat each meal, that’s 18,000 calories going into a system that normally processes 2,000 calories in a day. Don’t you think that would give your body’s plumbing some issues? And whereas your body’s plumbing has a little give, your home’s plumbing does not.

I don’t know if you have called a plumber lately, but it usually costs around $100 just for them to show up. You’re already strapped for cash with all the gift and food purchases. This is a terrible time for a large additional expense. I’m going to tell you a few things you can do to prevent any plumbing issues, and a few less expensive ways to deal with plumbing issues should they arise.

Preparation

Let’s go ahead and clean out all the drains first. Most of us don’t do this until there is a clog. But drains clog up over time and cleaning them will extend the time before your next clog. Not to mention, it is much easier to clean a drain that still drains. You can use liquid drain cleaners to clear hair and grease out of your sink drains. I would advise pouring a modest amount in each drain. Before using a liquid drain cleaner on your bathroom sink and bathtub, I would advise using a great plumbing tool called a Mini Snake. It cost less than $5 and is the greatest tool for getting hair out of a drain. It’s a long, skinny, flexible, barbed plastic stick that you slide down your drain. When you pull it back out, the barbs grab any hair from within the first few feet of your drain. Then pour in some liquid drain cleaner.

If you are not afraid of a little plumbing, take apart the p-traps under each sink and clean them out. That’s the curvy thing under your sinks. Water sits in the curved part to prevent the sewer smell from creeping out of your drain. It’s also where a lot of build-up happens. They can be uninstalled and reinstalled by twisting plastic nuts that can often be turned by hand. I would suggest replacing any plastic washers as they often don’t seal after being unsealed and resealed. This will also help with leaks down the road.

There is not much prep work you can do for your toilets, even though they are the ones that will take the most abuse over the holidays. Toilet clogs usually happen from one flush. Once waste escapes the trap in a toilet, it falls into a large pipe going straight down. It is very unlikely that this pipe will clog. If this pipe is backed up, and water is coming out where the toilet meets the floor, it is usually a sign that your main sewer line is backed up. Just buy a plunger for each bathroom so you can spare a family member the embarrassment of having to ask for one, and hope for the best.

Main lines are the most common issue in our part of town. A stoppage can shut down the drainage plumbing for the entire house. That means no flushing the toilet, no way to wash dishes in the sink, and no showers, unless you don’t mind standing in sewage. The main sewer line is the four inch pipe that goes from your house to the street. Our lush greenery in midtown has roots, and those roots are impressive in their search for water, especially water spiked with a little extra nitrogen (poop). Many of our homes still have terracotta pipes. Terracotta is a clay material that was once used to make pipes. Each joint was sealed with a concrete cement which was sure to wash away over time. The saying “they don’t build them like they used to” does not apply in the plumbing world. If you have terracotta pipes, you have roots, and your pipes will eventually clog. Even with modern PVC pipe, roots can find a way in. I suggest doing two things to your mainline before the holidays. First, wash it out with a Drain King. A Drain King is a bladder that attaches to the end of a garden hose. Insert the Drain King into your clean out. A clean out is a ground access pipe that runs from the ground to your main line and has a twist off cap. Push the Drain King into the main line as far as you can going towards the street. Make sure you go the right direction or you will send sewage up through your drains and your home will look like a scene from the movie It. Once you turn on the hose, the bladder will fill up, creating a pressure seal while the Drain King shoots water through your pipe. This will not remove the roots; however it will wash out any toilet paper, dirt, and debris that is caught in the roots, allowing sewage to flow freely. I was able to use a Drain King once a week for a year to buy time until I was ready to replace my main line. After you use the Drain King, use a product called Root Killer. You flush it down your toilet and let it sit in your pipes overnight. The chemical in Root Killer will kill some, if not all, of your roots.

A lot of the products I have already mentioned are the same products you will use to remedy the problem once you have one. Here is a list of all the places you may have clogs and what to use to fix them.

Bathroom Sink

Sink plunger – looks like a miniature plunger.

Mini Snake – best for hair.

Liquid Drain Opener – best all purpose.

Kitchen Sink

Liquid Drain Opener – sink plungers and Mini Snakes don’t work as well with the larger pipes of kitchen sinks. The problem here is usually grease which needs to be broken down.

Shower/Bathtub

Mini Snake

Liquid Drain Opener

Toilet

Plunger – tried and true, this classic is always the go to for over wipers. Great if the issue is too much toilet paper. Try a Master Plunger for a little extra push. It has an accordion like body.

Toilet Auger – when the clog is not toilet paper, this product is great for removing foreign objects stuck in the trap of the toilet. It is a 3 – 6 foot flexible, metal snake-like rope with a handle. Unless the object is a perfect fit, this should get it. Sometimes the object fits so perfectly in the trap, the only way to get it out is to remove the toilet and crack it open (see picture of the shell my son put down our toilet).

Mainline

Drain King – really the only way to go for amateurs. There are large augers that can be used, but they can be expensive and require expertise.

Good Luck and Happy Holidays!