Most people only start thinking about how to prevent drain blockage when they have actually had a blockage, which of course is too late. It’s shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Or is it?
It is never too late to learn, and getting into simple habits can prevent a problem from happening again. If you are now wondering how to prevent drain blockage, you are not alone. Anybody can be affected by this common household issue and plumbers like J.O. Plumbing spend plenty of time solving these problems for customers who may not be particularly careless in most regards, but just didn’t realise there are simple steps you can take to avoid this.
First, let’s look at the concept of drainage. It means channelling excess water in a direction where it will do no harm and will disappear from your premises forever.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
They were innovative people, the Romans. They developed concepts including central heating and sanitation, and in the process of the latter, they dealt with drainage. In fact, there were earlier civilisations that did a lot of work on this, but because they tended to disappear completely and there were no computer records or even books to record their achievements, they may be overlooked. The Indus civilization, for instance, existed in the Bronze Age (2300-800 BC, or BCE if you prefer), and there is evidence that they had successfully addressed the issue of drainage.
The Roman Empire came a little more recently than that, and although some Roman scholars were no doubt aware of the Indus achievements, the public would not have been. The Roman plumbing pioneers may have been what we call reinventing the wheel when it came to the issue of drainage, but let’s give credit to them anyway.
Those earlier drains were much cruder and bigger than what we have now, and they certainly wouldn’t have involved small PVC pipes, so blockages may have been less common in those days.
So perhaps we can blame the modern scourge of blocked drains on our own sophistication, but if so, we must also consider that blockages can be avoided by following some simple guidelines.
Be Careful What You Put Down The Drain
It stands to reason that we can’t put anything down a drain that is too big to fit in the hole, but when that hole is the size of an average toilet pipe, it can be easy to just fling anything down there and expect it to vanish. But that doesn’t always work. We often see a warning not to put sanitary towels and other feminine hygiene materials down the toilet in hotels, and that is because they can expand and cause a blockage we don’t expect. We expect what looks like paper products to just break up when they get wet, but clearly, that is not the case here.
We should, therefore, never put non-biodegradable items down a sink, drain or toilet.
Less obvious but equally troublesome is hot fat, which appears to be a fluid, runny substance that would be ideal in a pipe. But when fat cools it can turn solid, and then it’s a different proposition altogether. It is said that the sewers below many modern cities are congested with huge blocks of accumulated fat, like greasy icebergs. This will not be such a surprise to anyone who has ever fried some food and poured the fat down the kitchen sink, only to find it clogs up like an ear that needs syringing. Okay, you might just need to unscrew the U-bend and clean it out, but it demonstrates what can happen further down the line.
Good drain practice takes into account that a certain amount of cooking oil and fat from food will find its way down the plughole, and it can be shifted by something as simple as flushing with hot water, possibly with a mixture of baking soda and vinegar poured in first. And of course, there are plenty of drain-cleaning products in the supermarket that can be used as part of a regular maintenance programme, rather than only in emergencies.
Taking Preventative Measures
Other options to prevent drain blockages include using sink guards, which are like strainers that keep food particles from entering the pipes. Hair can be a problem too, but rather than fiddling around to make it go down, good practice is to take these things out and put them in the bin, where it can cause no trouble.
Some people even suggest brushing your hair before getting in the shower, so that any hairs that are about to come out are prevented from doing so in a plumbing environment.
Making Drain Hygiene Part of Your Housekeeping
Not many of us enjoy cleaning the house, but it has to be done, and if you want simple measures for preventing drain blockages, incorporating the above drain cleaning tips into your routine can help. On top of that, just be careful what you put down there. Out of sight might be out of mind in the short term, but in this case, it can come back to haunt you.
In case of a Blocked Drain Call J.O. Plumbing
If you have a blocked drain in Narre Warren, Pakenham or anywhere else in Melbourne’s Eastern suburbs don’t wait. Contact J.O. Plumbing today. We specialise in clearing blocked drains, hot water repairs and more. Our team is available 24/7 and offers same-day service to get your drains flowing smoothly again.
Give us a call at (03) 88997561 or request a quote online.
