Preventative Maintenance That YOU Can Do – Keeping Your Drain Line Open

In this video Dave Henry gives you suggestions that YOU can do to keep your drain lines open and minimize the chance that drain clogs will occur.

Of course saving you headaches and money.

Preventative Maintenance

To minimize your chances of calling for a York PA Plumber try to do a little preventative maintenance – One thing you can do is have this simple tool you can pick up at Home Depot, it is called a zip-it tool. It has a bunch of hooks on the sides. You should periodically (every 6-12 months) go around your house and clean out your drain lines. This tool is for bathrooms and lavatory drains. ?Bathroom sinks and tubs. If you see the water is slow at going down the drain that would be a good time to use this tool

Boiling Water and Vinegar

For kitchen sinks get yourself a big pot and add in 3/4 water and 1/4 vinegar. Put on the stove. Bring to a boil. Then dump down you kitchen sink. You may also want to try this down your bathroom or lavatory sinks and tub drains and also your clothes washing machine drain. The hot water and the vinegar is a mild acid helps break up that gunk. Now it will not open your sink if its clogged, but it will help keep the gunk from building up.

Clothes Washing Machine Drain Cleaning:

For clothes washing machines put your washing machine on hot water on the extra large load setting. You want to get as much water as possible.

Fill it the whole way up and turn it to the spin cycle and dump it out. The hot water will help break up the gunk and the detergents in the drain lines. The detergents actually break down and turn it into a black gunk.

The hot water will help flush the drain line. Again, this will not help if it’s already stopped up or clogged. This is something that has to be done before it is stopped up.

The Coat Hanger Trick

Another little thing you can do is try a coat hanger if you don’t want to run to Lowe’s or Home Depot and get the special tool noted above.

Take a coat hanger, cut and straighten to make as long as possible. Make a hook on the end. Insert into drain line. You will most likely need to remove the stopper to get the coat hanger down the drain line. With the special tool above you most likely can leave the stopper in place.

You can also use the metal coat hanger on toilets.

Landlords And Property Maintenance

I would suggest you every year or so or when you have a tenant move out you make it a habit of cleaning out the drain lines to remove hair and build up. And dump the water and vinegar mix down the drains to remove the build.

This will keep your tenant happy and lower your unexpected expense of calling for a plumber in York PA.

Please consider Wilbur Henry for your next plumbing-related problem by using our plumbing contact form or calling 717-755-5461.