Taking steps to protect your drains can help you avoid the stress and inconvenience of drain issues and save money on drain repairs.
As a leading Bath drainage company, we know drain maintenance makes a huge difference to our customers. When you focus on protecting your drains, you’re helping to extend their lifespan and improve their performance, as well as making it easier to nip problems in the bud.
Drain maintenance can also help you to preserve your property’s value. If you decide to sell and the prospective buyer arranges a homebuyer’s drain survey, you may need to lower the sale price should major faults be found. Indeed, ‘buyers are often deterred by the prospect of costly repairs’, remarks Property Saviour.
Protecting your drains has many benefits – so read on for our best drain-care tips.
By guiding a camera through your drainage system, we can locate/map the pipework, assess its condition and diagnose problems without any excavation work. This makes yearly CCTV drain surveys an incredibly convenient and effective way to protect your drains.
Fried breakfasts, fish and chips, roast chicken… If you enjoy the most popular British dishes, you may well be pouring used cooking oil, fat and grease down the sink. But did you know they can form drain-blocking mini fatbergs when they congeal? Protect your drains by disposing of oil, fat and grease properly. Let them cool slightly, carefully pour them into sealable plastic containers and place them in the bin once cold.
Disposable wet wipes are too fibrous and strong to break down easily in your drains (90% contain plastic, notes Wessex Water). So if you flush them away, you may soon need our drain unblocking service. Always bin them instead – or buy reusable alternatives.
It’s normal to lose 50-100 hairs each day. But if too many get washed down the plughole, they contribute to drain congestion, especially when covered in haircare products’ sticky residue. That’s why you should brush your hair before showering.
Also, remove pet hair from pet bedding before washing those items. Specially-designed pet hair rollers simplify the process.
Another effective form of drain maintenance is to cover drain gratings with drain guards. Made of durable plastic and designed to fit snugly around downpipes, they’re available from hardware shops. Drain guards stop leaves, twigs, soil, gravel and litter from being blown into your drainage system and clogging pipes.
You can take a similar approach to drain care indoors by putting plughole strainers in your sink, basin, shower and bath. These sieve-like plughole covers reduce the number of rogue substances (food debris, dirt, etc.) entering your drainage system, thereby reducing the risk of blockages. All you need to do is empty the strainers regularly.
Toilet paper manufacturers have come up with various ways to tempt consumers to spend more on this household essential. For example, quilted and scented options are relatively pricey. But because they’re dense and/or contain fragranced oils, they don’t disintegrate as easily as cheaper products. ‘Slow-dissolving toilet paper can get caught in your pipes,’ Family Handyman warns. So to protect your drains, switch to inexpensive 1-ply toilet roll.
A crucial aspect of drain maintenance involves familiarising yourself with the signs of blocked drains so you can seek professional assistance if required without delay. If you notice horrible smells, gurgling noises, slow drainage, standing water or backups, our Bath drain unblocking team can use specialist drain jetting, snaking or rodding techniques to get wastewater flowing again.
One of the simplest ways to protect your drains is to pour hot water from the kettle down plugholes every couple of weeks. The water will help to melt and dislodge anything clinging to drain walls. For a drainage boost, Good Housekeeping suggests pouring 125g bicarbonate of soda and then 125ml distilled white vinegar down plugholes and letting the mixture fizz for five minutes before washing it away with hot water.
Drain jetting, which uses high-pressure water to eliminate congestion and obstructions, is the most effective way to give drains a comprehensive clean. It’s also far safer than chemical drain cleaners. We recommend that our drain jetting customers book this service annually to help keep their drainage system in tip-top condition – it’s a superb way to protect pipework.
For all your Bath drain maintenance needs, call Mega-Rod today on 01225 422980.
