Believe it or not, Thanksgiving is the number 1 holiday for drain disasters. It’s true. Thanksgiving seems to bring out the worst in drains, so exercising a little caution can make a big difference in your holiday.
How to avoid drain problems on Thanksgiving
What makes Thanksgiving so drain-unfriendly? The holiday is a perfect storm of all the elements that go into an epic drain fail.
Overuse
Family and friends descend on a home during the Thanksgiving holiday, so the bathroom has to be in tip-top shape. Extra usage, extra paper and Uncle Buck may all help to overwork your drains and septic system.
Food preparation
Ordinarily, people may be very good about not putting food waste down the pipes, but Thanksgiving is an oversized holiday and there’s an awful lot of eating going on. That means there’s an awful lot of food preparation going on, too. Despite our best efforts, some extra food waste may make it down the drains, leading to clogs.
That darned turkey!
Once the turkey has been roasted, and the drippings have been turned into gravy, there’s still usually a lot of drippings left. And they sometimes end up in the drain. If you’ve ever let the drippings cool on the stove, you know that they turn into a gelatinous substance that looks a little like turkey Jell-o. When you pour the drippings down the drainpipe, they also turn into that Jell-o, which form-fits to your pipe. You end up with a custom-fit stopper somewhere between your sink and the septic tank, and that little plug isn’t going anywhere without a little help.
To avoid these Thanksgiving disasters, make sure your septic system is ready for a crowd if you’re hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year. That might include a pre-emptive cleaning or maintenance to make sure your system doesn’t get overworked. It may also include clearing the drains in your house to remove any organic buildup that could slow them down.
Second, don’t put food scraps down the drain. That’s true on Thanksgiving and every other day of the week. In a septic system, food scraps don’t break down. They contribute to the scum layer on top and the sediment layer on the bottom of the tank, but generally, they just take up space. Make sure the food scraps end up in the trash, or in the compost pile if you compost your waste vegetable matter.
Third, and maybe most importantly, don’t dump the turkey drippings down the drain! If you’re going to discard them, capture them in a spare soda bottle with a tight-fitting lid and route them to the trash. (They won’t clog up the garbage truck!)
If you run into trouble this Thanksgiving holiday, call us at Clear Drain Cleaning at (330) 343-7146. We can safely hydro jet your drains to clear them of any obstructions and get your drains running freely!
