4 Plumbing Myths &The Truth Behind Them
- By Admin
- •
- 05 Mar, 2020
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Even if you always aim to keep your household plumbing pipes and fixtures in great shape by caring for them meticulously, you may believe some common plumbing myths that keep you from protecting your plumbing from damage as well as you could. You may even perform some tasks that you thinks help keep your plumbing in good shape that actually harm your home plumbing system.
Read on to learn four plumbing myths and the truth behind them, so you can stop accidentally damaging components of your home plumbing system.
Myth #1: All Products Labeled as Flushable are Safe to Flush
Many personal care products are labeled as flushable, including wet toilet wipes and feminine hygiene products. You may flush these products on a regular basis and think they cause no plumbing problems when they do not immediately clog the toilet.
However, many personal care products with the flushable label do not break down at all or break down minimally when exposed to water and gradually accumulate in a home's plumbing system. This accumulation can lead to a back-up in the home's main sewer line or elsewhere in the home plumbing system.
To stay on the safe side, flush only toilet paper and human waste down the toilet to avoid home plumbing system damage back-ups.
Myth #2: Caustic Drain Cleaning Products Do Not Harm Your Plumbing
If you experience frequent drain clogs, then you may keep a store-bought drain cleaning product around the house and use it to unclog drains on a regular basis. Unfortunately, many drain-clearing products you can buy at local stores contain caustic chemicals. Not only do these caustic drain cleaners typically break down drain-clogging build-up poorly, but they can actually damage your pipes as they unclog the drain.
Some of these drain cleaning products create heat as they unclog the drain, and this heat can degrade older pipes and cause plastic pipes to warp or melt. This pipe damage can lead to water leaks in your home. Professional plumbers use drain snakes or augers that unclog drains mechanically to avoid the pipe damage that caustic drain cleaners can cause.
Myth #3: Drop-in Toilet Cleaning Products Are Toilet-Safe
No one enjoys cleaning a dirty toilet, which is why there are many toilet cleaning products on the market that claim to clean the toilet with every flush after you place them in a toilet tank. While you may suspect that these products are toilet-safe, they can actually damage many of your toilet's components.
Many of these products contain highly alkaline toilet cleaning agents that can damage a toilet's flush valve, flapper, gaskets, washers, and other rubber and plastic parts in your toilet tank. Damage to these components can lead to trouble flushing your toilet or a toilet that runs continuously and wastes water.
To avoid this toilet damage, clean your toilet bowl manually on a regular basis and never place these cleaning products in your toilet tank.
Myth #4: Hot Cooking Grease Can Be Safely Flushed Down the Toilet
You may know that you should not pour hot kitchen grease down your kitchen sink; it can solidify in the sink pipes and then cause a kitchen sink drain clog. To avoid this problem, you may instead flush this grease down the toilet.
However, you should never pour hot cooking grease down your toilet. While you may be able to flush it without creating an immediate toilet clog, this grease will solidify somewhere in your home's plumbing pipe network. As you flush more hot grease or other items down the toilet, they can all accumulate at the site of the solidified grease and clog your home's main sewer line, leading to a sewer-line back-up.
Instead of flushing this hot grease down the toilet or pouring it down the drain, instead pour it into a heat-proof container, such as a tin can, and then dispose of it in the garbage.
