Thanksgiving is just a day away. That means plenty of delicious turkey and pies, exciting football games, and family gatherings. It also means a lot of extra strain on your home plumbing system! While you may look forward to post-Thanksgiving for the great Black Friday sales, we at bluefrog Plumbing + Drain know the day after Thanksgiving for another reason—it is often the busiest day of the year for us!
With all the hustle and bustle around the holidays, people often forget to take care of their plumbing and pipes like they should. Not only are they doing excessive amounts of cooking in the kitchen, but extra guests and family members are often using toilets, showers, and sinks much more often than typical. That means your whole home plumbing system is under a lot of pressure during this time.
Preparing Your Kitchen for the Holidays
Not surprisingly, we often get an increased number of calls for the day after Thanksgiving—also notoriously known as “Brown Friday” in the plumbing industry. According to some reports, plumbing service calls can jump up by as much as 50% on Black Friday! One of the main causes is not shocking: additional clogs in the kitchen. From turkey bones to sweet potato peels to pumpkin entrails, there is plenty of hearty food clogging up your
drain or damage your sink this time of year.
What to keep out of your drain this Thanksgiving:
- Potato peels
- Onion peelings
- Any type of bones
- Stringy vegetables
- Pasta or rice
- Oily or greasy foods
- Any large amount of food
How to Keep Your Bathroom Clog Free
With an influx of family members, friends, and loved ones filled to the brim with Thanksgiving lunch, dinner, and leftovers, your bathroom suddenly becomes much more popular. Toilets—no matter how modern or new—aren’t used to handling so much sewage. With young kids playing around the house, toys and other items may also find their way into the toilet.
You may not even be aware of the potential plumbing problem until over usage has already overwhelmed your system! Keep in mind that you need to give your plumbing time to work and rest. Keep an eye out for partially clogged toilets and drains (which can often fly under the radar), as this can lead to more of a major back-up if not resolved right away.
Helpful tips to keep your bathrooms in top condition:
- Wait at least 15 minutes between showers for slower drains to clear out.
- Don’t flush cotton balls, hair, scrub pads, or any other objects down the drain.
- Get your plumbing checked out before the guests arrive—better to fix a clog ahead of time than during a family dinner.
- Know your plumbing system’s limits. Too many house guests can lead to costly plumbing disasters.
If you do run into a clogged sink, broken down garbage disposal, or backed up toilet after the big Thanksgiving feast, you can have peace of mind knowing bluefrog Plumbing + Drain is available 24 hours a day to fix it!
Contact us now if you need to make an appointment.
