Drains, Products, and Services Archives - Page 3 of 4

Garbage Disposer

Old Garbage disposals can cause clogged kitchen drain lines and clogged sewers. The Disposal’s blades become dull with time, allowing large pieces of food to get into the drain line and before long a clog occurs.

Clogged sinks can sometimes be taken care of with an old fashioned plunger. The can get tricky when your kitchen sink is made up of a double, garbage disposal, and dishwasher, which are all connected to one drain line. If this is the case, it is strongly suggested you call a professional drain cleaner or plumber. Applying pressure with a plunger on this type of drain line can cause more problems than you already have.

Skin care products can clog tub and shower drains

Bio Clean II

Some folks with dry skin types will use lots of oily products for their skin and hair. These products get into the drain and cause clogs just like we would see in a kitchen sink. This did not dawn on me until one of our plumbers came in the other day and told us that the customer he just came from “would not have as many clogged showers if she didn’t wash vegetables in there!” He is funny guy and always puts a funny spin on everything –and as usual we had a good laugh. After he left I got to thinking about oil in the shower drain and realized these oily skin and hair products are probably causing many of the clogged shower drains that we get calls on.

To stop using these products is not an option for our customers. Therefore, the only solution is using Bio-Clean to maintain drains before clogs appear.

For more information, visit our web page

https://www.scottishplumber.com/drain-cleaning-services/slow-drains

Does vinegar and baking soda unclog a drain?

The Scottish Plumber recommends Bio-Clean to most homeowners who are looking for an environmentally friendly and safe way to clean their drains.

We’ve heard of a lot of people attempting to use a mixture of vinegar and baking soda to unclog a slow drain, but unfortunately, we haven’t heard of much success using this method. And as the expert drain cleaners we are, many people have asked us for our opinion on this mixture.

From a scientific standpoint, it really doesn’t make any sense that a mixture of vinegar and baking soda would unclog a drain. When you mix the two, the acetic acid in the vinegar reacts with the sodium bicarbonate in baking soda, and this acid-meets-base combination creates the sudden surge of bubbles to form that we’re all familiar with (remember your 6th grade science experiment of making the volcano?).

The reaction is known as a “double replacement” reaction. The acetic acid and sodium bicarbonate form carbonic acid, which is a very weak acid and sometimes used in soft drinks. But the carbonic acid is unstable, and immediately falls apart into carbon dioxide and water in a decomposition reaction. The bubbles that form in the reaction come from the carbon dioxide being created- and if you’ve ever mixed vinegar and baking soda together, you’ve noticed how quickly the bubbles form… so the carbonic acid doesn’t last very long and is too weak to break down any materials in a clog such as hair or soap.

Some of the leftover baking soda is usually left in the pipe, which can actually make an existing clog worse if the reaction turns it into a sludge that doesn’t rinse away easily. The Scottish Plumber usually recommends Bio-Clean to most homeowners who are looking for an environmentally friendly and safe way to clean their drains. Bio-Clean uses natural bacteria and enzymes that break down organic material like hair and soap. Contact The Scottish Plumber for more information on how to get Bio-Clean, or visit the Bio-Clean page on our site.

Tub and Shower Drain Clogs

Bio Clean

Women’s jams & jellies are a common tub drain clog culprit. These items get into the drain because they sit on top of the skin and are washed down the drain when bathing or showering. Add those oils to soap scum and hair and you have some serious drain blockage. Today there are body scrubs that are made of olive oil, sugar and other varieties of the same ingredients which will cause drains to clog if they are not regularly maintained. Ask your plumber for a solution and he will let you know about a great product called Bio-Clean.

The best remedy is drain maintenance with Bio-Clean, a product made with natural enzymes which multiply in the drain line eat up the clog.

For more information, visit our web page

https://www.scottishplumber.com/drain-cleaning-services/slow-drains

Sump Pump or Sewage Ejector?

Many people have heard of sump pumps, but not many people know about sewer ejectors- also called sewage ejector pumps. And with all of the different makes and models of pumps out there for both sump pumps and sewage ejectors, it can be hard to tell which you have in your home without the help of a professional.

So what’s the difference between a sump pump and a sewer ejector? A sump pump deals mostly with excess water in and around a basement, to control and prevent flooding. By having a properly dug sump pump pit in the lowest area of the basement of a home, excess water from the ground, rainwater, and storm water is collected in the pit and pumped by the sump pump out of the home and into a storm sewer or a city’s wastewater system. It can even pump away the excess water in the soil around the foundation of a home, to prevent basement moisture, mold, and flooding.

The actual wastewater from the sinks, tubs, and showers in most homes is drained into the sanitary sewer or city’s sewage system by a series of drains and pipes powered simply by gravity. However, in some situations a drain, laundry line, tub or other wastewater creator can be located too low in the home to drain by gravity. This is when the home needs a sewage ejector pump to force the wastewater into the sanitary sewer.

If you have a sewer ejector in your home and sewer gases are leaking out of the pit and causing a sewage smell in your basement, it may not be properly installed or maintained. The covers for older sewage ejector pumps are commonly made out of steel and can corrode and lose their airtight seal over the years. If you notice sewer gas smells near your pump, contact The Scottish Plumber right away to have it inspected and make sure it’s in working order. The presence of sewage in a home that is not pumping it out of the basement effectively is a concern for the health and safety of the home’s occupants.

Tree roots: winter is their growing season

Some of our most common services involve clearing tree roots from sewer pipes and repairing the damage caused by the infiltration of tree roots. The pipes that take a home’s sewer waste away from the building and into the city sewage system are the most vulnerable to tree root intrusion. A tree’s roots can extend into the surrounding area up to 2.5 times the height of the tree, and fan out with hair-like tentacles searching for water and nutrients from the soil. I’ve found tree roots popping up through the ground into my compost heap from a tree 25 feet away: its radar found the higher-level nutrients of the compost and tentacled its way up through the surface!

In the winter, the tree appears dormant because it has shed its leaves and isn’t receiving any energy from the sun. But it still needs water to survive through the winter, so much of the tree’s energy is spent growing its roots in search of water and oxygen (tree roots require oxygen to grow, so they aren’t often found in pipes that are completely filled with water and prefer sewer lines, which have low levels of water in them when not in use). The roots are attracted by the warmth, water, oxygen and nutrients found in underground sewer pipes and are strong enough to reach through joints, cracks and fissures in the pipe. The flow of warmer water through the pipe causes water vapor to escape into the cold soil surrounding the pipe: ringing the dinner bell for the tree.

piperoots — Tree roots reaching through a pipe joint (photo courtesy of ehow.com)

Once a small tree root gains access, it can enlarge, spread, and create a clog after it expands and traps debris in the pipe. Since it’s out of their reach, there isn’t much a homeowner can do to prevent tree root growth in a home until they recognize that it’s a problem. If your drainage system becomes slow because of a tree root problem, some of the first things you might notice can include a gurgling system from your toilet or wet areas around floor drains after running a washing machine. If the tree root infiltration is low and slow-moving, it can be cost effective for The Scottish Plumber to simply trim the roots from the inside of the pipe on a regular basis- using high-pressure water jetting or a sewer rodding machine.

If tree root infiltration becomes chronic, it might be wise to replace the pipe with a material that is more resistant to tree roots (such as PVC, which has tighter joints that are harder for roots to penetrate), or to re-line the pipe with trenchless technology, where the pipe is re-lined from the inside with a strong, root-resistant epoxy material. This process is often much more cost-effective than replacing the entire pipe, can extend the life-span of an existing pipe for decades, and doesn’t require a yard to be dug up to access the pipes.

Don’t put it down your drain: cooking oil and grease

We all know we’re not supposed to pour used cooking oil, bacon fat, or other grease products down the drain, but we do it anyway. And The Scottish Plumber knows we do it anyway because we are often called to open kitchen drains when they get clogged, and remove globs and globs of solidified cooking grease. We recently replaced some kitchen pipes for a remodeling project and peered through a section of drainpipe after it was removed. A layer of solidified oils and fats had reduced the width of the pipe to only 3/4 of an inch. It was only a matter of time before a small piece of food lodged itself in the grease and caused a clog!

Even if you run lots of hot water and soap down the drain while pouring the oil, it’s still going to collect on the pipe walls and turn into a sludge that is hard to remove from your pipes- often requiring high-pressure water jetting. But if we’re not supposed to pour greasy and oily substances down our drains, then what do we do with them? During the Great Depression, families would often re-use their cooking oil several times before discarding it; and during WWII, families used to save their bacon fat in jars and donate them to the war effort- where factories would use the fat to create glycerin for explosives.

Today, you can still use your cooking oil more than once if it was lightly used and you strain it through a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth. Some municipalities also have recycling centers or drop-off points for used cooking oil to be safely disposed or re-used. Keep a sealable container like a peanut butter jar or pickle jar (either glass or plastic if you’re afraid glass will break) near your sink, and after the oil has cooled enough (especially if you’re using a plastic bottle- you don’t want to melt the plastic), carefully pour the grease into the jar. When the jar is full you can throw it in the garbage if it’s small, or find a disposal location.

You can use the grease in a compost heap if you have one, or take it to your local landful or hazardous waste facility (the same place you would take paints, batteries, chemicals and CFL bulbs). Ask your local city government or municipality office for locations to dispose of used cooking oil or grease. Some restaurants will even take the oil to include it with their own disposed oil for recycling- restaurants that use large quantities of oil for frying are required to pay for a service that picks up their used oil and disposes of it safely- ask a restaurant if you can bring yours to include in their disposed oil.

Don’t let Thanksgiving overwork your disposal

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and families across the country are gathering together and cooking huge meals… then cleaning up after those meals and sending bits of turkey fat, cranberry sauce, and potatoes down their garbage disposals. As drain cleaners and plumbers, one of our busiest days of the year is the day after Thanksgiving. Instead of Black Friday shopping, a lot of people in the Chicago area stand over clogged kitchen sinks, calling us to come out and clear their drains.

Taking care of a lot of holiday meal preparation (and cleaning up the aftermath) near the kitchen sink is a huge temptation to send large pieces of food into the garbage disposal and down the drain. Even the toughest disposals on the market today still only turn food into a mush, which makes it easier to slide down a drain, but it can never be a liquid- which means overloading a drain with too much food can clog it. Especially starchy foods like potato peelings, which can expand and thicken the water around it; and celery, which is stringy and hard for a disposal to thoroughly chop up- it can be pretty easy to overwork a disposal and clog a drain on Thanksgiving Day.

You can prevent this by limiting the amount of food you send down the disposal. Avoid pouring gravy down the drain, turkey parts, skins, bones, and other greasy substances which can quickly build up and cause a clog. Throw meat and bones in the trash in a tightly-sealed bag to keep raccoons and other animals from sniffing it out and tearing through it in the trash can. Vegetables and other large pieces of food should be thrown in the trash. Or if you have a garden, you may want to look into creating a small compost heap or sealed compost bin. Even in cold weather, organic materials like fruits and vegetables (just about any food except meats and greases) can be composted and turned into great fertilizer for a garden.

With family in town and kids visiting from college with full laundry baskets a lot more people are doing laundry and taking showers this weekend, so take care of your drains and watch for signs of slow-moving water.

Happy Thanksgiving from The Scottish Plumber!

Don’t Put it Down Your Drain: Motor oil

Possibly the biggest “no-no” for pouring anything down drains is used motor oil. It’s actually illegal in most municipalities, because of how much environmental damage it does and how easily it can contaminate an area’s soil and water table.

If you change your own oil in your car, NEVER pour used motor oil down a drain in your house or garage, into a sewer or storm drain in the street or a manhole on a sidewalk, alley, or street. Also never pour motor oil directly on the ground or street. The basic rule for pouring motor oil is that it can’t be poured into anything at all.

There are many places where you can bring in your used motor oil to be recycled properly. Check with your city’s programs, or find a place on this website: www.earth911.com. There is also more information on the City of Chicago’s website.

And most auto parts and care stores offer motor oil recycling, even if you don’t get an oil change at their facility. Call a store near you and ask if you can drop off your used motor oil there.

Don’t Put it Down Your Drain: Starchy Foods

Rice, potatoes, noodles, and breads that are poured down a garbage disposal can clog a drain. After being mashed up by the disposal, water is added as it is rinsed down the drain and travels down the pipe, then these starchy foods can turn into a paste and expand to clog and block any water from flowing past.

If you’re peeling more than one or two potatoes, don’t grind all of the peelings in the disposal. Instead, throw the peelings in the garbage can or in a backyard compost heap. If you find that your drain is getting slow or clogged because of an excess amount of starchy foods, use an enzyme cleaner such as Bio-Clean to break down the food particles. Enzyme cleaners are especially important to homes with septic tanks too, so incorporate regular enzyme products into your tank’s maintenance.