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Drain Cleaning Tips: 5 Things That Should Never Go Down The Toilet | Richardson, TX

Drain Cleaning Tips: 5 Things That Should Never Go Down The Toilet | Richardson, TX

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When it comes to toilets, everyone has an opinion. How large the flush should be, how tall the toilet should stand, and what shape the toilet seat should be. Of course, we can’t forget style elements and paint colors. There is also the age-old debate over whether or not the toilet paper should hang over or under against the wall. While you can debate a few of those things, one thing you should never debate in your home is what should go in your toilet, because the rules are pretty strict in that manner.

Unless you enjoy regular backups in your Richardson, TX home that require drain cleaning, you need to make sure that the only thing that goes down your toilet is toilet paper, pee, and poo. That is it. There are no exceptions, and these little exceptions are usually what results in emergency drain service and/or broken toilets. It is actually surprisingly easy to clog and break a toilet, which is why you need to stick to the following toilet rules.

Unfortunately, while proper toilet use seems pretty basic, every home seems to have its own house rules about what is safe to flush. As the drain cleaning service who has to clean up after a lot of these incidents, we urge people to read the following list of five things that absolutely should not go down the toilet and listen. Each of these things can easily cause a clog that requires cleaning and probably a lot of frustration for you as a Richardson, TX homeowner.

Flushable Wipes

First up on the list is one of the biggest offenders: flushable wipes. It is safe to say without a doubt that every single drain cleaning company in the greater Richardson, TX region despises flushable wipes. The biggest problem with these wipes is that despite their marketing, they are not flushable. A lot of people who have gotten used to using them are probably recoiling right now, but a simple test you can do on your own will prove to you why.

Toilet tissue needs to dissolve right away so that it doesn’t clog your plumbing system. Home pipes are not that large, and it is easy for things to build upon the walls of your plumbing and cause larger issues. Toilet paper is made to dissolve the minute it hits the water so that it never poses a clog riks, flushable wipes on the other hand do not. See for yourself by filling up two bowls of water with room temperature water. Drop a flushable wipe in one and a regular piece of toilet tissue in the other. The flushable wipe will not fully dissolve, and what is left behind is what is likely getting left behind in your pipes resulting in the need for regular drain cleaning.

It turns out that your major drain clog issues might actually be caused by flushable wipes, which is easy to take out of the equation if you don’t want to keep paying for regular drain cleaning. By the way, flushable wipes can also ruin a septic system and result in damaging a system beyond repair. This has happened countless times as well. So unless you want to pay for a new septic system and cleaning, it’s time to ditch the flushable wipes.

Sanitary Napkins

While this should be obvious, a lot of people don’t understand that sanitary napkins need to be disposed of everywhere but the toilet. You can’t flush sanitary napkins or tampons down the toilet no matter how small they are because they will get caught and clog your drains. The toilet wasn’t made to flush these products, and despite how common they seem they can cause major plumbing issues quickly. In fact, given the absorbent nature of sanitary napkins and tampons, they can actually expand even more once fully submerged in water increases the chance that you will need cleaning to get rid of a preventable clog.

Tissue Paper

Another common mistake homeowners make is to confuse tissue paper (commonly called Kleenex), with toilet paper. While tissue paper may feel lightweight and thin, it is not designed to dissolve when it hits the water and it won’t. You cannot interchange Kleenex for toilet paper because it will build up and it will cause a major clog. Unless you enjoy cleaning up sewer water and calling for help from a drain cleaning service, kleenex needs to go in the trash can every single time. Once is too much for the toilet.

Contacts

While it may seem like flushing small contacts down your toilet is not a major issue, it is actually a large global issue. Billions of people wear contacts around the world, and contacts are nothing more than tiny pieces of single-use plastic. They do not dissolve and they do not deteriorate. So when they get caught in your pipes they stay there forever slowly adding to the debris and partial clogs until one day the entire passageway is clogged. In addition, even if the contacts leave your plumbing system, they will enter the water supply and potentially be lethal to small animals that ingest them. The bottom line here is that contacts do not belong in the toilet.

Floss

Finally, the other big offender on the list of things not to flush is floss. Flossing is a daily habit for a lot of people, so it is easy to see how a piece of floss every single day for months can add up to one huge clog. Floss does not deteriorate and will not go away once it gets stuck in your pipes. A drain cleaning professional might even describe it as a hairball for drains once it accumulates enough in your pipes. Once again, the best way to avoid any future toilet problems is by simply not flushing your floss and taking the extra step to the bathroom trashcan.

Of course, if it is too late and you are already dealing with a clog, you will need help from a drain cleaning service. bluefrog Plumbing + Drain of North Dallas is a professional drain cleaning service that can come to your aid if you are facing a sewage emergency.

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