Keep Your Pipes Happy for the Holidays: A Guide to Sewer Line Health

During the fall and winter holidays, we spend extra time preparing enormous amounts of food, bathing and doing lots of laundry. This usually means a lot of extra stuff goes down into the main sewer line in your home. If this line becomes damaged or clogged, it could mean serious trouble that threatens fun with your family and friends. And if sewage backs up, it could cause property damage. Here are some tips to protect your sewer line and know when you must repair or replace it.

Be Careful What You Put Down Your Kitchen Drain

So much goes down the kitchen drain, and this eventually leads to trouble with your sewer line. The biggest and sneakiest villain is grease, such as turkey fat, bacon drippings or oily gravy. While hot grease looks like a harmless liquid when you pour it down the sink, it quickly cools and turns into a thick, sticky solid inside your pipes. It acts like glue grabbing onto every scrap of food that passes through your pipes.

The more grease that accumulates, the narrower the passageway becomes, and water cannot get through. Then when people scrape plates into the sink, this compounds the mess and causes a blockage to accumulate. To avoid a blockage in your sewer line that can literally ruin your festivities, there are some tips that you can implement to keep your drains and sewer line clean.

Basics in the Bathroom

When you have holiday guests staying over, the bathrooms get a whole lot more use. This increased traffic can reveal problems that you did not even know you had with your sewer system.

To keep trouble at bay, flush only waste and toilet paper down the commodes. Do not flush any so-called flushable wipes because they do not break down and can cause clogs in the sewer line. Remind all your house guests to throw everything but toilet paper in the trash can. This includes diapers, cotton, facial tissues, paper towels and those “flushable” wipes.

Signs You Need Sewer Line Repair or Replacement

Your sewer line does not just fail suddenly. There are signs that will let you know you have a problem. For instance, drains in multiple rooms may move slowly, you may notice a foul smell outside your home or hear gurgling noises when water drains.

Schedule a Professional Sewer Line Inspection

Before everyone arrives, you want to schedule a professional sewer line inspection. Guests bathing one after another and running the sinks multiple times a day will put a lot of stress on your plumbing system. A licensed plumber can help you address problems with your sewer line promptly, so they don’t put a damper on your fun.

Addressing any problems with your sewer line ahead of time means one less thing to worry about, so you can channel all your energy into enjoying time with your family and friends. Reach out to LJ Kruse Plumbing Heating & Cooling for professional inspections and sewer line repair and replacement services to protect your Berkeley, CA home.