Stop! Don’t Put These Things Down the Drain

The most common plumbing problem homeowners face is a clogged drain. You could pour a store-bought chemical mixture down to potentially clear it, but the chemicals may damage some types of pipes and do more damage than good. The best way to manage a clogged drain is to prevent it from happening in the first place. Keep these items out of your kitchen sink to keep your pipes running free and clear.

Grease

Whether it’s bacon grease after Sunday brunch, the oil you used to fry chicken, or the gravy you smothered on top of both, grease coagulates when it cools. It sticks to the side of pipes and disposal blades creating a gunky mess that chokes out the space water has to drain. Dispose of grease in a closed container and throw it away.

Stringy Vegetables

If you’ve ever seen the string of a balloon get caught in a ceiling fan, you have some idea of the hazard stringy vegetables pose to your garbage disposal blades. Vegetables like celery and asparagus have strings that can become wrapped around the blades, rendering them useless. Once they stop working, everything you put into the disposal stays in the disposal, creating a nasty smelling backup. Throw the stringy stuff in the garbage, or better yet, the compost pile.

Coffee Grounds

They may seem small and harmless, but coffee grounds cling together, absorb water, and become a dense, immovable mound in your drain trap. Coffee grounds are best tossed into the garden, not the kitchen sink.

If your garbage disposal quits working because a peach pit jammed it up (throw pits in the trash), or if it makes a racket because those chicken bones just won’t grind up (they never will), call the plumbing professionals at Rinaldi’s Energy Solutions. And if your teenaged daughter’s shedding hair has you standing ankle deep in shower water, we can help. We’ve been servicing Orlando homes since 1969.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Orlando, Florida and surrounding areas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).

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