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Fundamental Tips To Prevent Your Drain from Clogging

If it is not quickly dealt with, bad odour can make your home inhabitable. Clogged drains bring most of these bad smells in our home. Without clean drainage system, you will always suffer from acrid smells. Always take a proactive measure rather than to rush when the smell is out of control. There are numerous options to choose from when it comes to cleaning your drainage system. It’s your choice to pick any of them and use it to your advantage. Some of the clearing clogged drain methods include the use of chemical cleaners, organic solutions, plumbing snakes, or hiring a professional plumber among others. The above methods may be a little bit expensive, and this is why we recommend you just to prevent the clogging rather than clearing the drains after clogging.

How to Prevent Your Drain from Clogging

Taking preventive measures is very easy. You only need to be cleaning your drain regularly. This method will always ensure that you have a clean drainage system that will lead to a clean surrounding. Below we have compiled essential tips that you can use to prevent clogging in your drain.

Use Drain Strainer to Trap Large Food Particles

Drain Strainer Are you aware that food particles and other unwanted products are the primary causes of drain clogging? Once they get into the pipe, they get hipped up, and with time the pipe becomes blocked. This causes the clogged materials to start decaying thus producing the bad smell. A drain strainer is a perfect solution when it comes to this problem. It can sieve the large particles from penetrating to the drainage pipe.  Buying the strain will cost you the very little amount of cash comparing to hiring a plumber to unblock the system. This is why the use of strainer is highly recommended.

Always Avoid Pouring Greasy and Oily Products

Greasy and oily products are known to be less viscous. This makes them very sticky making other food products to be trapped. As a result, they end up blocking the pipe. The process of decaying starts producing an awful odour. If the drain is not cleared within a very short time, a bad smell may spread all over the house to an intolerable level. If you have sticky food, it’s advisable to put them in a trash can and then dump them in a pit or wait for the sanitation workers.  This tip significantly reduces the need for hiring a professional. Grease is one of the most common reasons for a blocked drain – see this post for some of the other main causes for a blocked drain.

Clean Using Boiling Water

Boiling water is among the best methods you can use to clean the drain. Hot water will always melt the greasy and oily products sticky on the pipe. This will ease the rate at which the food materials get trapped inside. Hot water will also kill some of the fungi and bacteria that causes decaying thereby reducing the bad smell. Pouring boiling water should be done regularly like once or twice in a week. Repeating this process will minimise the need of a professional to help you solve the problem.

Opt To Use Drain Screens on the Drains

On the above tips, we have mentioned big particles as the start of clogging in a drainage system. However, other small products may also cause clogging. Some of these include hair, soap scrum among others. The hair coils up with other materials forming a large particle which ends up clogging the pipe. To prevent this problem, a drain screen is crucial. It is readily available in the hardware stores and other shops near you. Drain screen is like a sieve and is placed on the opening of the drain. It traps all the hair and soap particles among other materials.

Always Avoid Dropping Thick Paper Products in the Drain

One of the big mistakes that people do is dropping thick paper products in the drain. Thick papers take some time to absorb water and move on the drain. As a result, they end up blocking other waste product from passing through. This causes clogging in the drain. Papers will definitely cost you a lot of money to drain, and that is why they should be avoided at all cost. Put paper products in your dustbin or put them anywhere else but not throwing them on the drain.

Lint Catcher for Dryer

Always Install a Lint Catcher on the Washing Machine Hose

You can avoid some of these clogging products even before they reach the drain. A washing machine is known to produce some fabrics and facial tissues which are known to block the drain. To avoid this waste from reaching the drain, you can use a lint catcher. It is installed on the hose pipe that drains water thereby trapping all the fabrics and other big particles. This ensures they don’t reach the drain. It eases the process of cleaning the drain since no fabrics will ever reach the drain.

Avoid Throwing Joint Setting Compounds Completely

Joint setting compounds are those products used to join other products, for example, cement and rinsing grout among others. When you allow the product like cement to get into your drain, it will form hard particles like stones which will block materials from flowing through. To some extent, these products may cause a permanent blockage. This may result in putting up of a new drain which may be costly. Avoid any waste material which is mixed with setting compounds to ensure that you enjoy a clean drain throughout your lifetime.

 Always Keep the Area Surrounding the Drain Clean

Cleanliness starts with the area surrounding the drain. If the area is dirty and unkempt, the rate of big particles entering the drain is very high.  Sometimes you might find leaves, twigs, fabrics, soil or any other waste material around the drain. They are the cause of clogging once they penetrate inside the drain and hence should be removed at all cost. Make it a habit of looking at the drain area daily to ensure its safety all the time.

Always Avoid Strong Drain Cleaner

Some people think that cleaning the drain with strong drain cleaners is the solution but sometimes it may not. If your drainage system is made of metallic pipes, some of these chemicals may corrode with it causing permanent damages. Use the normal drain cleaners but mostly apply the preventive measures to avoid unnecessary costs after that.