Clean Your Drains Naturally
No one knows better than you what might find its way down the drain pipes in your home. A family member who sheds hair like a bear in the shower? Cooking oil and grease pitched down the kitchen sink when no one is looking? A future sea captain four-year-old performing a burial at sea in your toilet with his favorite toy?
Maybe none of those situations quite fits your household, but it’s fair to say that most people eventually run into some type of issue with their drain system.
Our message today is centered on some of the routine causes of drain backups, and will also introduce a home drain treatment program you can administer yourself to help eliminate some drain clogging headaches, while helping you avoid pouring undesirable chemicals down the pipe.
Culprits
It’s good to know what your drains don’t like. High on the list of troublesome waste components are organic substances like grease, soap scum, hair, food particles, human waste and paper.
On their way out of your home they can accumulate in low spots, attach to obstructions and otherwise fail in your mission of getting them out of Dodge. Over time, the buildup can become severe enough to create unpleasant odors, slow drainage, or even a complete backup.
Prevention
One of the best ways to avoid blocked drains is to control what you put into them. Things that commonly make their way down drains that would be better off in the garbage or being repurposed include:
- Cooking oil
- Cooking waste
- Hair
- Tampons
- Cotton balls
- Chrysler LeBarons (just seeing if you’re paying attention!)
- Most homes have a garbage disposal, and food waste is commonly processed through them.
Yet the less you send down the disposal, the better for your drain system. So, clear your plates into the trash first. Hair can be managed to a degree by employing a simple hair strainer in your showers/tubs. For those blessed with a healthy head of hair, you are probably familiar with how quickly it can become a tangled ball in the drain.
What’s New?
Even with the best of intentions, drains will be drains, and so they’re going to get messy. Believe it or not, there are products available today that will naturally eat up that messy stuff inside your drain system, and you can apply it yourself.
These biodegradable products are environmentally neutral and won’t damage your drain pipes. This is especially attractive, since many of the over-the-counter drain clearing solutions are toxic and corrosive.
Just pour a little powder into water, mix it up, and pour it into the drain. Containing specially chosen bacteria and enzymes, the solution breaks down and digests organic waste inside the drain system. It will even consume itself, leaving nothing behind.
Other methods for cleaning and maintaining drains naturally include the use of baking soda and vinegar. Recommendations on how and how much to use can easily be found on the internet from sources that don’t have the liability concerns that our team could potentially face by providing DIY instructions here.
Advantages of Bio Methods
Compared to chemical drain openers, bio-based drain cleaning offers a number of advantages:
- Virtually zero environmental impact, inside or outside of your home.
- Removes organic waste products that are left behind by chemical or mechanical drain clearing methods.
- Works in horizontal and vertical piping.
- Helps eliminate foul odors from drains and disposals.
- Helps discourage root intrusion into outdoor underground piping by consuming organic waste that, in addition to water, tree and shrub roots are drawn to as a food source.
- Used regularly, it will help eliminate organic waste buildup that can lead to future drain problems.
- Limitations of the Biological Approach
- This approach will not be effective, or at best will be very slow acting, in combating heavily clogged or highly sluggish drains. For these more developed problems, a drain professional may be needed, initially.
The instructions for these products typically specify that the drain system not be used for many hours after application in order for the treatment to work. Applying at bedtime is a good solution.
Effectiveness is negated if bio products come into contact with chemical drain clearing products.
Another good reason to avoid chemical drain cleaners. Regular treatments are necessary to achieve long-term effectiveness.
The Right Call For Septic Systems & Municipal Sewers
Whether you connect into a municipal sewer system, or are off the common grid and have a septic system in your yard, biological based treatment of your drain and waste system can provide improved function and a healthier environment. We recommend this approach as the best long-term maintenance and care for your home drain system, wherever you may live.
For septic systems, in particular, this approach could make a great difference in overall performance and long-term sustainability, bolstering natural bacteria in the system against the many different products that get flushed down your drain. The same goes for outhouses and motor homes.
Find Out More Today
There are a variety of natural and biological drain cleaning products on the market. For a recommendation on a product to apply in your drain system, or if you have a drain issue or question, contact Save Home Heat Company in the Boulder and Denver, Colorado area for expert advice and prompt, professional drain service.
