When the weather is beautiful and your diary is full of fun summer activities, your drains are probably the last thing on your mind. However, it’s worth paying attention to those underground pipes, because the warmest season is a challenging time for them. High temperatures, dry conditions and sudden storms put drains under pressure.
The following guide to summer drain problems explores the main issues property owners face at this time of year, as well as how our Bristol and Bath drains experts resolve them. So you can stop nasty smells, blockages, etc. from spoiling your plans.
Why do so many drains produce particularly nasty odours between June and September? The reason is hot, humid conditions turn rogue substances that don’t belong in pipework (such as fat poured down kitchen sinks) into smelly gases, as well as encouraging drain-loving bacteria to grow faster and produce more odour molecules.
If you dread the summer drain smell coming up through your plugholes, you’ll be looking for ways of tackling drainage-related odours. You could carefully pour boiling water down plugholes – this may help to dislodge congealed cooking oil, say, that’s clinging to drain walls. You could also avoid washing food debris down the sink, especially after serving greasy summer staples such as barbecued burgers and sausages.
However the most effective way of eliminating an awful drain smell is to ask drainage specialists such as the Mega-Rod Bath team to perform drain cleaning, which typically involves using high-pressure water jets to completely clear congestion.
Drains often get blocked in the summer. The chances are that you spend more time outdoors in good weather and also take more showers – so more hair, dirt, sand, soap scum, etc. will be entering your drainage system. Moreover, if guests come round for garden parties, you may find they’re not as ‘drain smart’ as you’d hoped. For instance, they might flush away drain-blocking items such as fibrous, absorbent wet wipes.
If you spot signs of blocked drains, including slow drainage, standing water and backups, you can rely on our drain unblocking experts. We unblock drains in Bath, Bristol and beyond, using tried-and-tested methods such as drain snaking and drain jetting.
If you go on holiday for a week or two, ask a neighbour to run your taps regularly so wastewater in your drains doesn’t stagnate. That’s because still water is an ideal breeding ground for drain flies.
These tiny, fuzzy pests can lay hundreds of eggs in drains and enter buildings via plugholes. And because they spend so much time around wastewater and other waste substances, they can spread germs.
Fly swatters or sprays may help if you spot drain flies in your property. But a better way to tackle the problem is to eradicate the breeding site with the aid of professional drain cleaning.
While hot, dry weather is ideal when you want to top-up your suntan or play football in the park, it can spell trouble for your drains’ structural integrity. Soil around the pipework may dry out and shrink, becoming unstable. If it then sinks (a destructive process known as subsidence), the drains are likely to drop too, along with your property’s foundations. Pipework may fracture or collapse and joints may become misaligned, leading to everything from leaks to backups. Walls may develop dramatic cracks.
Summer storms after dry spells also threaten drainage systems and the properties they serve. As the Met Office points out, June 2024 was slightly drier than average and July was wet. When dried-out ground is subjected to heavy rainfall, soil can get saturated or partly washed away. This may also result in it sinking and damaging drains and buildings.
If you suspect extreme summer weather is undermining your drains, we can conduct a CCTV drain survey to identify any structural issues and other problems then take steps to resolve them.
CCTV drain surveys also enable us to check pipes for invasive tree roots. ‘Tree growth occurs in the spring and summer,’ explains the Royal Forestry Society. So at this time of year root networks are particularly keen to find water and nutrients, both of which are present in drains. Roots exploit – and worsen – cracks and loose joints in order to penetrate pipework. When they take hold, they can block drains.
After locating invasive roots during a drain camera survey, we can remove them with root cutting equipment and water jets, enabling you to get your summer back on track.
Mega-Rod in Bath has the expertise to fix all your summer drain problems – simply call us on 01225 422980 today.
