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At Drain Flo Plumbing, we’ve heard this question often, over numerous years: “How often should I have my drains cleaned?” It’s usually not until the folks of Brandon, FL are looking for a drain cleaning service because they already have a clogged drain that they think about a little more regular maintenance to prevent them from calling the professionals so urgently in the future.
Although, who can blame them. Tending to your pipes is not the most glamorous job in the house. What’s more, out of sight, out of mind. The drain is just there doing its job most of the time – the water goes down like it’s supposed to – except when it doesn’t and it hovers half-an-inch or deeper before it eventually swirls its way down. You get to that annoying point because you don’t see what’s inside the drain so you can’t see when they need cleaning. Only when you’ve called out for a drain cleaning service is when we can tell you just how much sludge has accumulated on the inside of your pipes.
It’s for this reason we recommend that you get your drains cleaned regularly but there is some conflicting advice out there as to just how often is enough. The right answer depends on a few factors.
Firstly, think about what exactly clogs your drains. In the kitchen, it’s grease leftover from your meal and food debris. In the bathroom, it’s hair, soap or other products. So, a larger family that contributes to these daily processes will see their drains affected more often – there’s more grease, remnants of food, soap and clumps of hair going down the drain than in other smaller households. Even grease, which may appear to run off the plate with the water and dissolve when it disappears down the plughole, will stick and congeal on the inside of your pipes and eventually it can clog your drain.
If you use a garbage disposal, your drains are likely to get clogged more often as well. If your home is quite old, as opposed to a new home with pristine pipes, the pipes may be narrower and block more easily while also gathering more junk inside them slowly over the years. And if you wash your dishes in the sink then you’re putting more debris down the drain.
One way to counter the latter problem is to use a dishwasher. Other mitigation techniques include wiping the grease off your plate before you wash it or disposing of more fibrous food remnants in the garbage can rather than the inbuilt garbage disposal and using a grate or filter to place over the plughole so that hair or food doesn’t go down it.
The other important measure you can take is to get your drains cleaned regularly, for example, through a drain cleaning service like Drain Flo Plumbing in Brandon, FL. Clogged drains, after all, do not occur suddenly but rather as a result of cumulative grime that starts to restrict water flow. Preventative measures like this will stop your drains from getting to a point where they get too clogged and where repair services rather than a drain cleaning service are needed. Drains that are maintained will last longer without needing repair and in turn require less upkeep, saving you the hassle of replacing them and money in the long run.
The recommended time period to get your drains checked is somewhere between one and two years. You can make a judgment based on your drainage use as described above or you can ask a professional drain cleaning service like Drain Flo Plumbing to give you their qualified advice.
Once every year is the most frequent you should need to clean your drains, however, you may want to clear them out more often if you notice your drains getting clogged more than once every month. If that’s happening then there may be something more serious wrong that your local drain cleaning service is trained to notice.
Call a professional plumber immediately, for instance, if the water in your sink continues to drain slowly or if you notice bad smells coming from the drains. Clogged drains could also be indicative of something else going on with your pipe work so you should call a professional plumber if blockages persist.
You may also find that one of the drains in your home is more prone to clogging than others. For example, kitchen drains tend to clog more often because they receive more debris down their shoot. If you find multiple drains clogged at the same time then call for a drain cleaning service as soon as possible as they can tell you if the problem is your drains or with your sewer. It’s certainly better to get the problem looked at before it could potentially get worse.
A preventative drain cleaning service, however, stops the problem from getting to the point where your whole drain system is clogged. For persistent cases, you may want to see about a monthly maintenance routine in between an annual service. A weekly regime may be too often to keep up but a monthly solution to minimize build-up could save you a lot of hassle in the long run.
So, if the sink in your bathroom, your kitchen, or even in your workshop or utility room, is draining slower than usual, or there’s a fault with the garbage disposal or any other plumbing issue in your home, call Drain Flo Plumbing for a drain cleaning service. The professionals at Drain Flo Plumbing will take care of the jobs you don’t want to or need to think about. Operating in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, New Port Richey and Brandon, FL, Drain Flo Plumbing will offer a drain cleaning service at a better value than anyone else.
