If you’re like most homeowners, you don’t think about your sewer lines until a backup occurs and you’re facing a horrible mess and expensive water damage repairs. Thankfully, there are effective strategies you can take to help prevent sewer clogs and lower the chance of backups wreaking havoc in your home.
Schedule a Video Inspection
A video inspection can give you an accurate view of the condition of your sewer lines. If you’re in the process of purchasing an existing home, make sure you include the sewer lines on your home inspection checklist.
An experienced plumbing contractor can tell you whether the video footage shows any sewer line blockages or developing problems and offer advice on your options, such as:
- Scheduled routing of the lateral lines to clear out invasive root growth and help avert backups.
- Trenchless or traditional sewer pipe replacement if the line has collapsed or there’s a severe blockage.
Your plumbing professional can also help you weigh the effectiveness and cost of these alternatives so you can make a wise choice or budget for future repairs.
Tips to Reduce Your Risk of Sewer Line Clogs
As you go about your day-to-day activities, keeping these tips in mind can help you lower the risk of sewer clogs :
- Never put grease down your kitchen drain. Even if it’s poured down the drain as a liquid, lard, shortening, butter or cooling oil will form into a solid that can block your sewer line.
- Be careful when using your garbage disposal. Don’t overload the disposal with sticky, starchy, bulky or fibrous foods. Throw them out in the trash instead.
- Flush only bathroom tissue. Don’t attempt to flush other personal or household products, even if they’re advertised as “flushable,” and never dispose of paint, oil-based products or chemicals via your toilet.
- Make sewer line-friendly landscaping choices. When you’re planting new trees or shrubs, pick spots far enough away from your sewer line so root growth won’t cause future problems.
For more information on how to prevent sewer clogs in your Grand Traverse County home, contact Team Bob’s Heating Cooling Plumbing today.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Traverse City, Michigan and surrounding areas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about sewer clogs and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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