Almost every domestic blockage we are called to starts in one of four places: the kitchen sink, a bathroom plughole, the toilet, or a gully outside the back door. None of them are difficult to look after. Here is what actually makes the difference in each, and the outside checks most households never do.
The kitchen
Fat is the single biggest cause of blocked domestic drains, and it does not need much of it. Warm cooking oil pours away like water and then sets solid in the first cool bend it reaches, where it starts collecting everything else that comes past.
- Scrape and wipe plates, pans and trays before they go anywhere near the sink or the dishwasher.
- Pour cooled fat and oil into a jar or an old tin, let it set, and put it in the bin.
- Fit a sink strainer and empty it into the bin, not down the plughole.
- Do not rely on running hot water afterwards. It moves the fat a few metres further along, which is where it sets instead.
Christmas is the peak, for obvious reasons — we wrote about that in Festive Fatberg.
The bathroom
Bathroom blockages are hair and product rather than fat: shampoo residue, soap and shower gel bind hair into a mat that sits in the trap and slowly closes it.
- Use a plughole hair catcher in the shower and bath, and clear it weekly.
- Lift and rinse the shower trap every couple of months. It takes two minutes and it is the difference between a slow drain and a blocked one.
- Keep floss, cotton buds and razor caps away from the plughole and the pan.
The toilet
The rule has not changed and there is no clever version of it: the only things that should go down a toilet are human waste and toilet paper. Wipes labelled “flushable” do not break down in the time it takes them to reach a sewer, and they are the material we cut out of blocked lines more often than anything except fat. There is a fuller list in what not to flush down your toilet.
Keep a lidded bin in the bathroom. Almost every household that stops having toilet blockages does it by making the bin easier to reach than the pan.
Outside — the bit nobody checks
Most of the drainage on a house is outside it, and most of it is never looked at until it overflows.
- Gullies. Lift the grid and clear the leaves, grit and silt out of the trap two or three times a year, and always in autumn.
- Gutters and downpipes. A blocked downpipe puts rainwater down a wall instead of into a drain. See gutter and surface cleaning.
- Manhole covers. Know where yours are. If you have never lifted one, lift it on a dry day and look — a chamber holding water when nothing is running is telling you something.
- Trees and shrubs. Roots find pipe joints and get into them. Think about where a new tree will be in fifteen years, not where it is now.
- Soakaways and septic tanks. These need emptying and inspecting on a schedule. See septic tank services.
What not to do when it does block
Caustic drain cleaners are our least favourite call. They rarely clear a real blockage, they sit on top of it, and they turn a straightforward rod-and-jet job into one where somebody has to open a chamber full of caustic liquid. They also attack old pipework and joints. If a plunger and a hand auger have not worked, stop there.
If a drain is running slowly rather than blocked, that is the useful moment to act — the warning signs are set out in signs your drain might be partially blocked. A recurring smell is worth reading about too, in why your drains smell and how to fix it.
When the same drain keeps blocking
A drain that blocks once is usually something that went down it. A drain that blocks in the same place three times is a defect — a displaced joint, a dropped section, root ingress or a fall that was never right. Clearing it again will keep working for a few weeks at a time and cost more than finding out why. A CCTV drainage survey gives you the answer and a coded report you can act on.
Talk to Exjet about your drains
Exjet Services has been solving drainage and sewer problems across Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Dorset since 1986, with commercial and planned work right across the South West. Our engineers are directly employed, and we are certified to ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001.
Related services: residential blocked drains, CCTV drainage surveys, residential drainage repair and gutter and surface cleaning.
Blocked now? Ring 0800 328 6655 — answered any hour — or request a quote.