Drains are great when they drain efficiently. But when they don’t, life can become more stressful and less comfortable. Have you ever stood in a shower with the drain open and find the water is rising to your knees? While brushing your teeth, does water fill the entire sink with dirty water? Why does this happen?
The more that goes down the drain, the more clogged drains you will have. The more you chose to put down your bathroom drains, the more important regular maintenance is needed to keep them running smoothly and better smelling.
Have you seen the ad for Turbo Snake? 
It promises you can clear your drains easily, watch this video clip and see if you think it passed the challenge. Our Dallas Benjamin Franklin Plumbing put this the Turbo Snake to the test. See how it did before you try to use it.
If you have slow running drains, you don’t always have to call a Gilbert Plumber to clear them. If you’re handy and don’t mind working around pipes, there are a few things you can do regularly when they get real slow.
If Your Bathroom Drains Are Very Slow:
- You can take apart the curved pipe (the P Trap) under the bathroom sink and clean it out, it may smell really bad, so be ready with a good garbage can close by with a lid. The first time I saw the inside of my bathroom sink drain, I was shocked at what had piled up in there. Clearing the P trap will help the sink drain run smoothly again.
- Your bathtub or shower drain can be cleared out with a very powerful shop vac hose tightly sealed around the drain area opening, (you may need to take off the drain stopper or strainer). Once it is sealed well around the drain, turn the shop vac on and hold it tightly against the drain opening until you can feel nothing more being pulled up from the drain. It should pull out hair and soap that have built up and stuck near the top of the drain line area.
How To Keep The Bathroom Drains Running Smoothly:
- Use a biodegradable drain maintenance product such as BioBen monthly, my past blog will give you more information on this product. It will eat away the hair and soap scum stuck to the pipes regularly, so you don’t have to open up the pipes or hire a Chandler Plumber to clear them out when they get worse.
- Cover your drains, with proper strainers to only allow water to pass through.
- Don’t let other things go down the drain if you can.
The Most Common Items That Will Slow Your Bathroom Drain System:
- Hair, long or short, overtime it gathers in the pipe and will stick to the pipe, the inside of the pipe will get smaller and smaller making water to run very slow down it.
- Soap, hair or makeup products will stick together in the pipe and make the drains slower and smell.
- Small Plastic Caps will get caught in the soap or hair sticking to the pipe or elbows of the pipe only able to allow a very small amount of water to drain at a time.
- Q Tips or toothpicks falling into the drains may allow slowing intermittently, sometimes they will allow more to go by and other times the drain will seemed more clogged.
- Dust and dirt build up over time allows the pipe to have a smaller opening and only allowing a small amount of water to drain at a time.
- Don’t flush things down the toilet unless you know your toilet or drain. Learn more about this in my prior blog Toilets vs Tampons Friends or Foes?
A Hint That Can Save You Money:
Keep the toilet lid closed, here is a photo of a cell phone that fell in a customers toilet.
Look for my upcoming blogs on:
How To Prepare Your Plumbing System For Vacation!!
Funny Photo Contest
