Is your plumbing ready for the holidays? In the long list of chores to do and errands to run to make your home ready for winter and hosting for the holidays, plumbing can be low on the list – if you remember it all. But making sure your plumbing is in a good state of repair before the holidays can save you a lot of headaches.
Before you invite your family and friends over for a holiday party or a longer stay, fix any ongoing plumbing issues that you’ve been experiencing in your home. These can include:
- Running toilets
- Leaking faucets
- Loose toilet handles / poor flushing
- Slow drains
A professional plumber can help you fix any of these problems, though you may want to check them out yourself first. Just remember that without the right tools and know-how, you may wind up causing damage to your plumbing. Treat plumbing maintenance before the holidays the same as you would cleaning up. If you wouldn’t leave your bathroom dirty for your guests, don’t leave your plumbing running with problems.
Clean Your Drains
The holidays are a bad time for grease clogs. With all the cooking you’re doing, it’s tempting to drain animal fat, oils, or food particles down the sink. Once they’re down there, they can congeal and turn into grease clogs that are impossible to plunge away. Clean out your drains before the holidays, especially if you’ve noticed them draining slowly.
One natural trick for cleaning drains is using a salt water solution to loosen up gunk and plunge it away. Salt is a powerful mineral that can make cleaning your kitchen easy without resorting to toxic or corrosive substances.
For nasty drain clogs, you may need to use a heavy-duty drain cleaner or even call a professional plumber to snake and clean the pipes. If the clog is too far down in your system, it can take a professional to fix.
Help yourself prevent drain clogs by being conscious of what you pour down them. Stop draining the grease left over in your frying pan down the drain and scrape food scraps into a garbage or green bin before you rinse them in the sink.
Solve Emergency Plumbing Issues
It’s the holidays and you have an emergency. There are 24/7 emergency plumbers you can call, but given the time of year, you may need to wait or pay extra. One way you can prepare for plumbing problems during the holidays (and all year round) is with a plumbing protection plan. You can say goodbye to plumbing issues with a simple monthly payment. Here’s what you should look for in a plumbing protection plan:
- Fast, priority service, no matter what day it is
- No pre-inspection, just get your issues solved ASAP
- Telephone support, which can be useful fixing small problems
- No limit to service calls
A plumbing protection plan will provide ongoing peace-of-mind and a reliable way to fix plumbing issues big and small.
Don’t let plumbing problems ruin your holidays. Clean up your plumbing with some professional help.
