Eight drain maintenance tips that can help keep your drain in excellent working condition. As Port Hueneme plumbing experts, we often get a lot of calls from homeowners asking, “How do I maintain my sewer line?”
Learning how to maintain your drain is a vital protective measure that will help you keep your sewer lines in excellent condition and reduce the need for repairs. Maintaining your drain lines may seem like an overwhelming task. However, the most challenging thing about doing so is maintaining consistency.
Here are eight simple tips that will help you prevent serious trouble with your drain lines. Remembering to perform these basic maintenance tasks consistently should ensure that nothing bad happens to your drains due to neglect.
Table of Contents
- Watch What You Pour Down the Drain Line
- Set Grease Aside
- Watch What You Flush Down the Toilet!
- Use a Drain Screen
- Flush Your Drains With Boiling Water
- Clean Your Drains Weekly
- Brush Your Hair Before You Shower
- Pay Attention to Tree Roots
- Clean Your P-Trap
- Know When it’s Time to Get Help
- Professional Maintenance
Watch What You Pour Down the Drain Line
The first rule of drain maintenance is prevention. It’s easy for homeowners to get into bad habits with their kitchen drains and garbage disposal units. You could damage your plumbing by putting stringy foods, fats, and other items in your kitchen sink.
Prevent drain clogs by placing the following in the bin rather than the drain:
- Coffee grounds
- Eggshells
- Fruit peels
- Medical products
- Paper towels
- Napkins
- “Flushable Wipes” (they lie)
- Produce stickers
Also, ensure that you go easy on your garbage disposal. Avoid putting large, tough, or fibrous foods into your disposal, as they can cause damage or clogs. Make it a habit to run cold water down the drain while using your garbage disposal to prevent food from getting stuck.
Set Grease Aside
The most common cause of blocked kitchen drains is the accumulation of grease and oils in the drain, mixed with other debris such as food and plastics. You should avoid cooking oil or grease down a drain. Even if the grease is in liquid form as you pour it down the drain, it will eventually cool and solidify, leading to clogs in your drain and sewer line.
Watch What You Flush Down the Toilet!
Generally, only human waste and toilet paper should go down your toilet. If you’re unsure whether you should flush something down the toilet, you shouldn’t.
While toilet paper is designed to dissolve, disposable wipes, paper towels, dental floss, and feminine products don’t break down and can clog toilets and drains.
Use a Drain Screen
Certain substances, such as hair, soap scum, and other debris, often get trapped in shower, kitchen, and bathroom drains. To prevent a blockage, place a drain screen over the sink opening. The drain trap will catch all non-liquid substances rather than letting them down the drain.
Flush Your Drains With Boiling Water
Boiling water is a simple yet effective way to maintain your pipes and prevent kitchen drain clogs. Regularly pouring boiling water down the drain is a great way to eliminate fat, grease, and oil buildup in your pipes. If you have PVC pipes, don’t use boiling water as this could damage your pipes. Instead, use really hot water.
Clean Your Drains Weekly
Even if you don’t notice any specific signs that your drains are having trouble with clogs, you should make an effort to clean them at least once every week. There are several DIY methods for cleaning drains, but you should stick to natural drain cleaners as some drain cleaning chemicals can end up doing more harm than good to your pipes.
Using a mixture of baking soda and white vinegar is the safe and effective way to DIY clean your pipes and drains. Start by pouring a mixture of 1/2 cup baking soda and 1/2 cup vinegar down the drain. Let it sit for five minutes before finishing the process by pouring boiling water down the drain. Besides removing debris, this combo helps kill bacteria and eliminates odors.
Brush Your Hair Before You Shower
Brushing your hair before hopping into the shower is not only good for your hair’s health. It also helps keep your drains clear. Brushing hair before you get in the shower removes loose hairs that would otherwise end up in your drain.
Pay Attention to Tree Roots
As much as you love the trees in your yard, tree roots have the potential to wreak havoc with your plumbing, resulting in a big mess as well as a costly fix. Your sewer line is a nutrient oasis for tree roots as it contains oxygen, water, and nutrients, things the roots naturally seek. If a tree root can, it will find a crack or small hole in the pipe and then grow within your sewer line, widening it and making things worse.
If tree roots make their way into your sewer line, they will become thick and snag things, like those “flushable wipes” that don’t break down. To prevent that from happening, hire the experts at Gallegos Plumbing for the best drain cleaning Port Hueneme offers. We’ll send in a pro to snake the sewer main and use root-cutting equipment to prevent significant blockages.
Clean Your P-Trap
Cleaning the P-trap is one of the simplest and most productive DIY plumbing fixes. The P-trap is that curved pipe you see beneath any sink in your home. If you experience slow draining in your fixture, try emptying the P-trap to avoid a full-blown blockage. Remember to position a plastic bucket directly under the P-trap before you remove it!
Know When it’s Time to Get Help
There’s only so much you can do to maintain your drains without the tools and expertise of a Port Hueneme plumbing expert. Call the professional plumbing contractors here at Gallegos Plumbing to keep your pipes healthy and your drains clear.
Professional Maintenance
Like a regular health check-up, a drain maintenance schedule is essential for every house’s upkeep. Investing in yearly Drain Cleaning Services ensures your pipes stay clear all year while reducing the chance of developing clogs.Set your pipes up for success with regular drain cleaning services from Gallegos Plumbing. Call us today at (805) 243-2622 or request your appointment here.
Watch What You Pour Down the Drain Line
The first rule of drain maintenance is prevention. It’s easy for homeowners to get into bad habits with their kitchen drains and garbage disposal units. You could damage your plumbing by putting stringy foods, fats, and other items in your kitchen sink.
Prevent drain clogs by placing the following in the bin rather than the drain:
- Coffee grounds
- Eggshells
- Fruit peels
- Medical products
- Paper towels
- Napkins
- “Flushable Wipes” (they lie)
- Produce stickers
Also, ensure that you go easy on your garbage disposal. Avoid putting large, tough, or fibrous foods into your disposal, as they can cause damage or clogs. Make it a habit to run cold water down the drain while using your garbage disposal to prevent food from getting stuck.
Set Grease Aside
The most common cause of blocked kitchen drains is the accumulation of grease and oils in the drain, mixed with other debris such as food and plastics. You should avoid cooking oil or grease down a drain. Even if the grease is in liquid form as you pour it down the drain, it will eventually cool and solidify, leading to clogs in your drain and sewer line.
Watch What You Flush Down the Toilet!
Generally, only human waste and toilet paper should go down your toilet. If you’re unsure whether you should flush something down the toilet, you shouldn’t.
While toilet paper is designed to dissolve, disposable wipes, paper towels, dental floss, and feminine products don’t break down and can clog toilets and drains.
Use a Drain Screen
Certain substances, such as hair, soap scum, and other debris, often get trapped in shower, kitchen, and bathroom drains. To prevent a blockage, place a drain screen over the sink opening. The drain trap will catch all non-liquid substances rather than letting them down the drain.
Flush Your Drains With Boiling Water
Boiling water is a simple yet effective way to maintain your pipes and prevent kitchen drain clogs. Regularly pouring boiling water down the drain is a great way to eliminate fat, grease, and oil buildup in your pipes. If you have PVC pipes, don’t use boiling water as this could damage your pipes. Instead, use really hot water.
Clean Your Drains Weekly
Even if you don’t notice any specific signs that your drains are having trouble with clogs, you should make an effort to clean them at least once every week. There are several DIY methods for cleaning drains, but you should stick to natural drain cleaners as some drain cleaning chemicals can end up doing more harm than good to your pipes.
Using a mixture of baking soda and white vinegar is the safe and effective way to DIY clean your pipes and drains. Start by pouring a mixture of 1/2 cup baking soda and 1/2 cup vinegar down the drain. Let it sit for five minutes before finishing the process by pouring boiling water down the drain. Besides removing debris, this combo helps kill bacteria and eliminates odors.
Brush Your Hair Before You Shower
Brushing your hair before hopping into the shower is not only good for your hair’s health. It also helps keep your drains clear. Brushing hair before you get in the shower removes loose hairs that would otherwise end up in your drain.
Pay Attention to Tree Roots
As much as you love the trees in your yard, tree roots have the potential to wreak havoc with your plumbing, resulting in a big mess as well as a costly fix. Your sewer line is a nutrient oasis for tree roots as it contains oxygen, water, and nutrients, things the roots naturally seek. If a tree root can, it will find a crack or small hole in the pipe and then grow within your sewer line, widening it and making things worse.
If tree roots make their way into your sewer line, they will become thick and snag things, like those “flushable wipes” that don’t break down. To prevent that from happening, hire the experts at Gallegos Plumbing for the best drain cleaning Port Hueneme offers. We’ll send in a pro to snake the sewer main and use root-cutting equipment to prevent significant blockages.
Clean Your P-Trap
Cleaning the P-trap is one of the simplest and most productive DIY plumbing fixes. The P-trap is that curved pipe you see beneath any sink in your home. If you experience slow draining in your fixture, try emptying the P-trap to avoid a full-blown blockage. Remember to position a plastic bucket directly under the P-trap before you remove it!
Know When It’s Time to Get Help
There’s only so much you can do to maintain your drains without the tools and expertise of a Port Hueneme plumbing expert. Call the professional plumbing contractors here at Gallegos Plumbing to keep your pipes healthy and your drains clear.
Professional Maintenance
Like a regular health check-up, a drain maintenance schedule is essential for every house’s upkeep. Investing in yearly Drain Cleaning Services ensures your pipes stay clear all year while reducing the chance of developing clogs.Set your pipes up for success with regular drain cleaning services from Gallegos Plumbing. Call us today at (805) 243-2622 or request your appointment here.