How to Clean Your Drains

June 23, 2020

As any homeowner knows, there’s a lot of work and maintenance that goes on inside the home. Some of it is apparent and can be seen while other types of maintenance might not be as clear to the naked eye. One of these types of cleaning and maintenance issues in the home is in the plumbing.

You cannot always see what is going on inside your drains, but they play a big role in making sure your home is working properly. If you need some help figuring out how to clean your drains then these tips will be useful for keeping your home in top shape.

Identifying the Problems

Each drain in your home will likely be tested by unique problems. For the kitchen, this is usually food products that get washed down the sink and end up clogging up. Vegetable pieces, meat, eggshells, any unwanted waste should obviously be thrown into the trash rather than just flushing it down the sink. One big issue is cooking grease congealing in drains as well, which can lead to serious blockage. The bathroom is where most people deal with problems. Sinks can become clogged and not allow for proper water flow from common issues like an abundance of nail clippings, facial hair shavings, and long hair strands. Again, it is best to just throw them out. Shower drains can become clogged with hair as well while toilet drains get backed up from our waste as well as too much toilet paper.

Should You Call a Plumber?

Eventually, you are going to run into some problems that just cannot be solved on your own. Whether your drain cleaning tools, your drain cleaners, your plunger, or any other method is not working to clear the drain or clean it, a plumber is there to help. Following what the experts at All Service Plumbers state, the right work for the job can often be best left to plumbers and professionals to avoid any problems that you cannot fix yourself. Messing around with the water flow in your home can have disastrous consequences if you do not know what you are doing. Working with pressurized water can lead to burst pipes and water damage which is altogether avoidable if you seek out help from a plumbing specialist. Even with all of the tools at your disposal, sometimes it is best to put your ego aside and let the experts handle the problem.

Good and Bad Cleaning Products

You might think any old drain cleaner will do the trick, which is partially true but needs to be examined. Heavy chemical drain cleaners can end up damaging your drains long term and cause them to rust and rot, costing you a lot over a long period. It is best to stick with biological or enzymatic cleaners which are better for your pipes and better for the environment. The water that gets flushed up inevitably ends up back into water reservoirs or other sewage drains and this is overall not good to be adding more chemicals. Another good reason to use these biological or enzymatic cleaners is that they can be used as a preventative measure against mold, mildew, and harmful bacterial growth which may impact your drinking water.

Augers and Drain Cleaning Tools

If you own an auger or other drain snake, you know just how useful it can be. For those that do not know or do not own one, these augers or drain snakes are long tubes used to get deep into the pipes to help clear out or remove the blockage if it was far from reachable. When a plunger cannot do the trick it is useful to have one of these on hand and they can prove to be very valuable in your home. Other tools that can be used in the home include a powered drain cleaner that is either gas or water-powered and compresses air to blow the debris away inside the drains. These tools are also very helpful but might be too much work for you if you own an auger, which is a preferred method by many plumbing experts.