With holiday fun and festivities having just happened – and more holidays around the corner, your local plumbing service is probably the last thing on your mind. In a perfect world, the holidays go off without a hitch, but unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world, and plumbing problems happen no matter the season. An overflowing toilet, clogged drain, or broken sewer line can set the wrong tone for the merrymaking going on in and around your Las Vegas, NV home. Some holiday plumbing tips can go a long way toward keeping the plumbing service out of your thoughts, just as it should be, so you can enjoy the food, the folks, and the fun to the fullest.
Get Your Drains Holiday Ready
Preparing your drains for the holidays is important and can help keep your plumbing service from encroaching on your holiday fun this season. Hosting a family dinner or other holiday get-together in your home or providing lodging for extra family members or loved ones can be taxing on your home’s plumbing system, especially the bathroom and kitchen plumbing. In fact, this uptick in use is why there is also a rise in the number of plumbing service calls during the holiday season. With extra bodies using toilets and showering—not to mention running the dishwasher more often—it’s not uncommon for problems to crop up. If you already have a small clog, an influx of household plumbing use can add to the problem too, turning a minor issue into a major one.
Prepare your plumbing system for this busy time by calling your plumbing service to request a drain inspection or tackling any slow drains or clogs before the guests arrive. When it comes to pre-holiday plumbing prep, the old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is definitely true.
Be Kind to Your Drains
One of the least favorite aspects of the holiday season in your Las Vegas, NV home is cleaning up after big meals. Now is not the time to get lazy and toss leftovers down the drain, or you may find yourself needing to reach out to your plumbing service for help. This includes scraping food into the main drain and being cautious about what you allow to go down your garbage disposal. A bit of convenience now might end up costing you down the road when those turkey bones and other food scraps cause problems for your pipes and other plumbing components. Use a strainer in the sink and take care with which items you allow to go into the disposal (opting for the trash for things that might cause clogs and other problems).
In general, avoid disposing of foods that are stringy or fibrous by putting them down the drain. Toss bread-based foods and pastas and rice in the trash too, since these can expand and cause a clog in your plumbing pipes leading from the drain or garbage disposal. Animal fat, animal bones, and eggshells are also on the no-no list of items you must never put into the disposal or drain. And it goes without saying that plastic, metal and paper belong in the trash, not your plumbing system.
A Word About Grease
Grease deserves its own callout when it comes to keeping it out of your drains. As any plumbing service can attest, many calls to service clogged drains result from homeowners and others pouring hot grease into the drain—where it naturally solidifies and leads to slow or clogged drains. Things get even worse when foot scraps and other debris stick to the grease and exacerbate the obstruction. Do your drain (and your wallet) a favor by disposing of grease properly – in a plastic bag or can that you throw into the trash.
Keep Your Toilet Off the Naughty List
Toilets work hard enough as it is. Throw in a few extra house guests and your toilet is working overtime to do its job. Be sure that guests are as nice to your throne as you are by reminding them not to flush things down the toilet that can result in obstructions and clogs. This includes cotton swabs, cleansing wipes, paper towels, and feminine hygiene products. Only flush human waste or toilet paper. When things like this get put into the drain, a call to the plumbing service is generally in order sooner rather than later, since clogs result – many of them are hard to handle and expensive to deal with.
Give Your Shower a Break
If you’re keeping holiday guests in your home for a few days, keep in mind that your hot water heater may not have the time it needs to reheat a supply of water if you have multiple folks showering one after the other – unless, of course, you have a tankless water heater that’s engineered to keep up with high demand. For this reason, it’s a good idea to allow around 15 minutes or so between showers to give the hot water heater time to replenish itself while also allowing wastewater and things like hair to make it from your shower drain and exit your plumbing system.
Hopefully these plumbing tips will help you stave off calls to your emergency plumber, so your holidays can be jolly from start to finish. But don’t worry if your plumbing goes awry during the holiday season. Craig’s Plumbing is here to help. Reach out to our local plumbing service, and we’ll dispatch our professional plumbing team to your Las Vegas, NV location, right away to get things working like they should as fast as possible. Our plumbing team is standing ready to provide the expert help you need right away, so you experience minimal downtime with your plumbing system.
