Protect Your Plumbing: What Not To Pour Down Drains
Despite their convenience, household drains aren’t meant to take every bit of waste we can conjure up. In fact, drains are the portals to one of the more delicate systems in your home: the plumbing. It’s important to remember that just because something is poured or flushed down the drain doesn’t mean it’s now no longer an issue. Indeed, what goes down may one day come up, and whether you’re an investor, a landlord, or a homeowner, there are many things we pour down the drain that can cause mayhem in household pipes, septic systems or municipal sewer plants – and in turn can be especially problematic for water ecosystems and their inhabitants. Water treatment facilities can remove many contaminants, but a great deal of harmful chemicals and substances still end up in our rivers, lakes and oceans. Certain other types of waste are virtually guaranteed to one day cause problems with your home’s plumbing if not the sewer system of the entire neighborhood, and who needs that sort of drama with their neighbors? So for the sake of healthy plumbing and healthier water habitats, here are some of the more common contenders for things that you shouldn’t send down your pipes.
Grease
Grease, fats, and oils pose the greatest hazard to plumbing yet are commonly ignored and poured down drains anyway by negligent property occupants. Butter, olive oil, bacon grease, or virtually any meat cooking byproduct or lipid in general can catch other solid waste and, as they cool, form “fatbergs” or collections of fatty deposits that wreak absolute havoc on sewer systems. Don’t assume you’re in the clear to dump that ground beef grease down the drain, even just this once; a clog will most definitely form, and the only thing that’s debatable is whether or not it will require immediate attention. If you’re an investor looking at property, always have the plumbing thoroughly checked. If you’re a landlord, instruct tenants to avoid pouring grease and oils down the drain at all costs. These materials are responsible for an estimated 47 percent of the 36,000 sewer blockages that happen each year, so don’t test your luck. It’s an expensive fix.
Coffee grounds
We all love coffee. Usually, we make it in the morning as we get ready for work or prepare to go about our day, and if you use a French press or traditional coffee maker, it’s tempting to rinse it out quickly and allow the coffee grounds to head down the drain. Some people seem confident that coffee grounds will not present a problem, and at first glance they don’t seem to cause a noticeable issue but most plumbers agree that nothing causes more blockages than coffee grounds and grease.
Eggshells
Much like coffee grounds, eggshells create granular waste that has a particular fondness for finding other waste – particularly fats – to form clogs. Many homeowners are mistaken in thinking that a garbage disposal will eliminate this risk, but if any other waste has gotten into the plumbing, eggshells will find it and create a particularly stubborn blockage due to the fact that they’re made of calcium. If you don’t want calcified joints in your body, you probably shouldn’t want calcified pipes in your plumbing either.
Oils
Oils, which some homeowners may ignore due to the fact that they’re not animal fats, cause just as much damage as leftover cooking grease. Remember, any lipid will work the same way in your plumbing, whether it’s salad dressing, mayonnaise, olive oil, or margarine. Watch what’s on the plates you rinse, because even if most solid food waste has already gone into the trashcan, oils can still be present on the plate and present a problem later on down the road.
Produce Stickers
Most of us rinse our fruit and vegetables and give barely a thought to what happens to the little sticker we peel off in the process. Though they don’t always end up in the drain, it happens regularly enough to create problems. They can get stuck in your drain and pipes as well as stuck on wastewater treatment plant pumps and hoses, or get caught in screens and filters. If the tiny stickers get past all of that, they end up in the water. We’ve got enough plastic in the oceans as it is, so we advise peeling the sticker off and throwing it away prior to rinsing your fruits and vegetables. Your pipes and future generations will thank you.
Flushable Cat Litter
For starters, there is no such thing. If you own a cat, you should not consider any kitty litter, regardless of how it may be advertised, to be “flushable.” The biggest problem is one of sanitation: cat feces can harbor the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which causes the disease toxoplasmosis. The kicker is that it’s not destroyed during water treatment, and can wind up back in the water table. Also, cat litter of any kind clogs drains and is a mess for septic systems. Think of it this way: cat litter is designed to clump when it comes into contact with moisture. If you put cat litter in an environment replete with moisture, such as a sewage system, it will do the one thing it’s designed to do and cause massive problems.
Paper towels, Cotton Balls, Wipes, and Feminine Hygiene Products
Any paper or plant fiber product that’s not toilet tissue – which is designed to disintegrate in water – will absorb water, expand, and eventually cause a clog or blockage. Even though some of these products may be billed as biodegradable, that doesn’t mean they’ll take kindly to water or won’t cause a huge problem for your plumbing. Absorbent materials frequently trap other waste, grease, or solids in plumbing to form “superknots,” which are expensive to remove and labor-intensive. If you use biodegradable paper products in your home, consider composting them. That will keep them out of your pipes and they’ll lower your overall waste contribution.
Paint
Most of us don’t think it’s a big deal to rinse our paintbrushes off in the sink, especially if we’re using latex-based paint, but if you wouldn’t flush a latex glove down the toilet, it hardly seems wise to put other latex products into your pipes. It’s also important to be aware that different cities have different requirements for the proper disposal of both latex and oil paint. Some are so strict that even rinse water from brushes used with water-based paints should not be poured down the drain. If you’re using an oil-based paint, it almost always needs to be disposed of at a hazardous waste facility.
Worthy of a final mention here at the end are conventional cleaners, automobile fluids, and medications. Most of us wouldn’t think of pouring our used motor oil down the drain after changing the oil in our cars, but any automotive fluid or cleaning product is likely to be highly corrosive and extremely damaging to a home’s plumbing. At the very least, corrosive materials may leach toxic compounds from the pipes themselves, which may put hazardous elements such as lead back into the watershed (you may remember something similar happening in Flint, MI recently). Be careful of which products you use to clean your sinks, bathtubs, and toilets.
Medications can also find their way into the water system if they’re not properly disposed of, and while they’re unlikely to damage your plumbing, they do affect crops, livestock (especially antibiotics), and the health of the general population when they’re dissolved in water as waste.
Remember, what goes down may very well come up, if only in the form of an inconvenient clog. Pay attention to what goes down your drain in order to preserve your plumbing system, and constant clogs may be indicative of a larger problem that needs more than just Drain-O. Be sure to check back with us regularly for updates, new properties, and advice on the art of real estate investment, and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
- Get It Right Solutions