Just like you perform routine preventative maintenance on your roof, gutters, and other areas of your home, it’s also important to take care of your sewer lines to help keep issues from cropping up down the road. Fortunately, there are several easy steps you can take to help ensure that your sewer lines stay clean and help reduce your chances of experiencing a sewer backup or the need for a sewer line repair.
Watch What Goes the Drain
One of the easiest ways to prevent issues in your sewer lines is to be mindful of what goes into your pipes. This includes the toilet as well as sink drains. For example, hair and soap can easily collect in your shower drain and work its way into the pipes, eventually causing the water to drain more slowly, or to even back up. One way to prevent this is by installing a mesh drain to catch hair and keep it from going down into the pipe.
When it comes to the toilet, if you are flushing anything other than waste and toilet paper, you are putting yourself at risk for clogs. Here are some items that you should never flush down the toilet. While some of these may seem like common sense, believe it or not, people have done it:
- Dental floss
- Diapers
- Baby wipes/wet wipes
- Condoms
- Sanitary napkins
- Cotton balls and swabs
- Paper towels
- Cat litter
Any of these materials can easily lead to a clog in your pipes if flushed, so just don’t do it.
Some of the biggest sources of clogs in kitchen sinks are fat and grease. Once poured down the drain, grease and fat cools fast, and start to congeal and stick to pipes, forming a clog. Then, as other items travel down the pipe, they can easily get stuck to the congealed grease and/or fat, creating an even bigger clog.
Other items you should avoid putting down the kitchen drain to avoid potential pipe and sewer line issues include:
- Coffee grounds
- Eggshells
- Pasta and rice
- Produce stickers
- Household cleaners
- Paint
Bottom line: the less items you allow to travel down your drains, the better off your pipes will be.
Keep Tree Roots Away from the Sewer Line
Believe it or not, another common source of clogged sewer lines are trees. Tree roots are always on the hunt for nutrients, and the water and organic material in your sewer lines are an appealing source of nutrients for hungry tree roots. If there are even small cracks in your sewer lines, tree roots can begin to work their way in. Over time, they can begin to block the sewer line, leading to draining issues in your home. If left unchecked, they can even damage or cause your sewer pipes to burst.
While you can avoid planting new trees near your sewer lines, it can be tougher to deal with pre-existing trees on your property. Luckily, that’s where the team at EcoClean can help. We can inspect your lines with a sewer camera and determine if tree roots have invaded your pipes. If we find roots, we can then quickly remove them using RootX®, an environmentally conscious root foam that will kill the roots without damaging your home’s sewer systems, or nearby trees and plants.
If you think you have roots in your sewer lines or are experiencing other issues, give us a call today!
