The
holiday season has come. Are your pipes ready? During the holidays,
you'll be doing a lot of cooking and inviting in a lot of different
guests. The last thing you want is a major plumbing emergency. If you
want your holidays to be picture perfect, consider these tips.
1.
Clear Away the Clogs
If
you have any slow drains or easily clogged toilets, the time to fix
that is now. You don't want to wait until the issues get worse, and
you end up with a family emergency on your hands. Frequently clogged
toilets and slow drains are usually because the pipes have a problem,
such as roots infiltrating into them. It may be an easy fix, but you
won't know until you inspect it.
2.
Keep the Cooking Under Control
You're
probably going to be cooking a lot of food, and that means that a lot
of extra food is going to be going down your drain. Keep your kitchen
under control by:
- Setting up a basket
for any food that can't go down the garbage disposal
- Putting catches in
the sink to prevent anything from going down the drain
unintentionally
- Keeping a bucket
nearby for any oils, so they don't get poured down the drain
Setting
things up properly will go a long way towards making sure that your
kitchen plumbing survives unscathed.
3.
Prep Your Bathroom for Guests
An
emergency can happen at any time. Make sure you have a plunger at the
ready if any blocked toilets do happen. If it's in a visible place,
your friends and family may be able to resolve some issues on their
own.
Likewise,
make sure there's an obvious waste bin available for things like baby
wipes and sanitary napkins. Flushing these things can cause a lot of
damage to your pipes. Even "flushable" wipes aren't
supposed to be flushed.
4.
Check Your Hot Water Heater
Are
you going to have family members over? Make sure your hot water
heater is up for the task. If it hasn't been emptied in a while, you
might want to get it emptied: hot water heaters fill with sediment
over time, which can lead to uneven water heating.
If
you've noticed that your water heater sometimes struggles to keep up
with the task, consider replacing it now. If your water heater is 10
years old or older, it's probably about to conk out regardless.
5.
Check for Leaks
Having
a leaky, wet home could be embarrassing. But if any time is going to
reveal it, it's probably the holidays. With more people using your
plumbing, the problems will become more obvious. Take some time to
wander around your house and check for leaks and other issues.
6.
Prevent Frozen Pipes
Frozen
pipes are common around the winter months, but they can be prevented
by keeping your home warm, and disconnecting outdoor pipes. Even if
you're going to be out of your house, you need
to keep the internal temperature of your home above 55 degrees. Make
sure rarely used pipes, such as pipes in the bathroom, are run a
little every once in a while or left on a very slow drip.
7.
Don't Forget the Kids
If
there are going to be a lot of kids in the house, they could
potentially cause some damage. Relegate a single guest bathroom as
the "kid's" bathroom to at least contain the mess — if a
toilet does get a bowl full of paper flushed down it, at
least it will only be that one.
It's
important to make a good impression with the rest of your family
during the holidays. And that means making sure that everything, from
the food to the plumbing, goes smoothly. For more
information, contact
Complete Plumbing
.
