A lot of stuff goes down the drain, and that is in the literal sense. You need to manage and care for it, as it is an essential component of the sanitation of your house. You have a few around the house with different purposes. The ones in your bathrooms are there to keep the floor dry whenever it is not in use. Your toilet bowl uses it to move waste, as is the one in your kitchen sink. There might be some specialty piping used that you do not see, but it is a small part of the complex network that lurks beneath the walls of your home.
Like the veins in your body, it is vital to keep things moving here as smoothly as possible. Clogging these can result in a messy situation, so here are a few suggestions on how you can avoid that.
Enhance the Barriers
Drains have covers that are designed to keep out large chunks of solid items from coming through. But if you want to, you can replace that with finer holes. Doing this would be extremely useful for the bathroom. Hair can easily block out the drain cover that is affixed to the floor, but it would be easier to clean out if you put an additional filter on top of it. This way, you do not have to pick the wet strands of hair out of it. You can take the filter out, then chuck its contents into a wastebasket.
That is also helpful in catching small pieces of soap, which can be dangerous as it can cause the floor to become slippery. It is better to have it filtered out because it can stick to the drain holes. When that happens, it becomes difficult to clean off, and you are better off letting it melt and wash away.
Unclogging Tools
If ever you find yourself in the unfortunate situation where you have a clogged drain, you have tools to use to free that passageway. You have no idea as to what is going on down there, so you need something that can reach tight spaces that can twist and turn. That is important because those pipes have curves, so you cannot stick in something long and pray that you can clear out the blockage.
A device that can crawl through this would be the drain snake. It looks like a long steel wire that has some bristles at the end, perfect for catching or breaking down objects. For your toilet bowl, you can use the trusty plunger to push and move the clog further into the pipeline. A lot of blockages take place at turns or angles in the pipe, so getting them out of there would let them flow smoothly to the next stages.
Unclogging Substances
There can be stuff in your pipes that are made of sturdy materials or out of reach, which means that some unclogging tools would be useless. For this situation, you can turn to the power of chemistry. Some substances or chemicals can break down or dissolve whatever is blocking your pipes. It is best to use this sparingly, as using it too often can damage your pipes. That can be more detrimental for you in the long run, as it would require major plumbing repair. That can take time, which would be a hassle because you may need to halt some activities that can affect the repair, like cleaning your dishes or taking baths.
Keeping your drains clean will keep you and your family healthy. Without them, the house or even the neighborhood might look like a wasteland. They keep the dirty and grimy stuff away from us, and you should do your best to make things stay that way.
