Drainage cleaning helps avoid clogs and keep drains, pipes and toilets working as intended, helping your home remain healthier and odor-free.
Clogged drains or pipes can become breeding grounds for bacteria, mold and mildew growth, leading to unpleasant squeaking or cracking sounds within your plumbing system. Regular professional cleaning will ensure the healthiest drainage system possible.
Clogged Drains
Clogged drains are one of the most prevalent plumbing issues, often caused by hair, soap scum or other debris accumulating in pipes and restricting their proper function. Luckily, there are several easy solutions available to you to tackle these problem areas without resorting to calling in professional services for help.
First, use the baking soda and vinegar trick: pour one cup of baking soda followed by one cup of white vinegar down your drain, let it bubble, and then flush with boiling hot water to flush away clogs as necessary. Repeat as necessary until clogs have dissipated.
Plastic drain cleaning snakes are another useful and cost-effective tool, featuring 24- to 36-inch strips with hooks on them that allow users to grab debris out of pipes.
For serious clogs, try using a powered drain auger instead. These tools are more powerful and longer than snakes but require you to open up your P-trap and expose its pipe stubout before they will work effectively.
Drain Smells
An unpleasant musty drain odor can be both bothersome and potentially hazardous to your health. Fungi such as mold and mildew thrive in moist environments like your pipes, leading to respiratory problems as well as other medical concerns. A musty odor could also indicate there’s water leakage somewhere within your plumbing system.
Eliminating drain odors is usually quite straightforward. Most often, the cause lies within an accumulation of gunk in your sink drain – whether that be food particles, hair follicles, toothpaste residue or soap scum – that has formed. Clogs formed due to this gunk can create unpleasant sewer odors within your home.
To remove gunk from pipes and drains, try boiling water or vinegar. When it comes to vinegar use, bring some white vinegar up to simmer and pour it down the drain – the acetic acid contained within will cleanse and deodorize pipes as you pour. Or pour three spoons of borax mixed with one cup of ice cubes or lemon juice down your drain for a bubbling reaction that eliminates bad odors!
Clogged Toilets
If your toilet keeps becoming clogged, it might be time to contact a plumber. A typical cause may include non-flushable items like Q-tips or cotton balls which cannot be flushed down the toilet as well as toys, cell phones, jewelry or bacon drippings which clog it further.
One effective way to prevent toilet clogs is to only flush human waste and toilet paper down your toilet, using only 1-ply tissue as 2-ply can cause blockages.
If plunging doesn’t do the trick, try pouring liquid dish soap (such as Blue Dawn) into the toilet bowl to coat and break up a clog, followed by gallon of hot tap water (not boiling) from your tap (but not boiling), this should help dissolve and flush away the obstruction. Depending on its severity, however, an auger may need to be employed as well.
Clogged Sinks
Clogs in drains can often be caused by small objects that find their way inside. To help avoid this from happening, pick up long hairs before flushing them down the drain, and have a trash bin nearby as an emergency source for other potential clogging agents.
Boiling water can be an excellent solution to drain cleaning if your pipes are composed of metal; however, using this method on PVC pipe systems could prove hazardous and should always be assessed prior to using this technique.
For sinks, remove the drain stopper and pour boiling water down the drain. Use a plunger to vigorously move up and down in an attempt to break apart clogs before plunging several times and running hot water down. After plunging several times, run hot water down to see if your problem has been cleared; for deeper clogs you may need to use a wire brush; otherwise using boiling water may help dissolve them but larger ones might require professional drain cleaners instead.
