We are entering the holiday season, hooray! With that comes tasty home-cooked meals prepared with lots of love (i.e. fats and oils from dairy and meat products). Fats, Oils, and Grease (FOG) may add great flavor to our holiday foods, but they are a problem for our sanitary sewer systems. When flushed down the sink, FOG's congeal and build up inside pipes, constricting flow of wastewater. This then leads to unwanted back-ups and overflows of untreated sewage.
Grease is a frequent cause of blocked pipes. Mixing hot water and soap may cause FOG's to "melt" in you sink, it quickly reforms into a solid blockage in pipes.
Prevent FOG Problems by:
x Don't pour oil or grease down the drain
x Don't run water over dishes, pots and pans to wast grease down the drain
x Don't was food scraps down the drain
* Do place cooled fats, oils, and grease into sealed container and discard in the garbage
* Do dry wipe grease from dishes before washing
* Do scrap food scraps from dishes into the garbage can.
Other plumbing tips for the Holidays:
Grease is a frequent cause of blocked pipes. Mixing hot water and soap may cause FOG's to "melt" in you sink, it quickly reforms into a solid blockage in pipes.
Prevent FOG Problems by:
x Don't pour oil or grease down the drain
x Don't run water over dishes, pots and pans to wast grease down the drain
x Don't was food scraps down the drain
* Do place cooled fats, oils, and grease into sealed container and discard in the garbage
* Do dry wipe grease from dishes before washing
* Do scrap food scraps from dishes into the garbage can.
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| Grease-clogged pipe! |
- Avoid putting stringy, fibrous or starchy waste in the garbage disposal. They cannot be sufficiently broken down.
- Make sure the disposal is running when you put food into it. Don't wait until it's full to turn it on.
- It's a good idea to wait 15 minutes between showers so waste moving through your plumbing has an adequate amount of time to disperse.
- Avoid toilet clogs by only flushing human waste and toilet paper . . . nothing else!
- Know your limits. Often, minor plumbing problems turn into plumbing catastrophes if not handled properly.
