Thanksgiving Plumbing Prep: Keep Your Kitchen and Guest Bath Flowing

Thanksgiving is the one day a year most Wichita kitchens run like a restaurant. The oven is on from morning to night, the sink never empties, the dishwasher runs two or three loads, and the guest bathroom gets more use in one afternoon than it usually sees in a week. That is a lot of load on drains and pipes that normally serve a household of three or four.

Most holiday plumbing problems are not bad luck. They come from a handful of habits: grease poured down the sink, the wrong scraps fed to the garbage disposal, and a drain that was already slow before the guests showed up. Here is how to get your kitchen and bathrooms ready so the only thing backing up on Thanksgiving is the line for pie.

Start a Week Early: Check Your Drains Before the Guests Arrive

A drain that is slow on a normal Tuesday will not get better on Thanksgiving. The week before, take a few minutes to test every drain your guests will use.

• Kitchen sink: Fill both basins a few inches and pull the stoppers. Water should drain steadily without gurgling or backing up into the other side.
• Garbage disposal: Run it with cold water. Listen for grinding, humming without spinning, or water that sits in the basin after it shuts off.
• Guest bathroom: Flush the toilet and watch the bowl refill. Run the sink and tub and check for slow draining.
• Under the sinks: Look at the trap and supply lines with a flashlight. A small drip now becomes a soaked cabinet after a day of heavy use.
• Dishwasher: Clean the filter at the bottom of the tub so it can keep up with extra loads.

If anything is slow, gurgling or leaking, have it looked at before the holiday week. Scheduling a drain cleaning or a quick repair on a regular weekday is far easier than finding help on Thanksgiving afternoon.

Fats, Oils and Grease: Keep Them Out of the Drain

Turkey drippings, bacon fat, butter, gravy and the oil from a fried turkey are the biggest threat to your kitchen plumbing this time of year. Grease goes down the drain as a warm liquid, then cools and hardens on the inside of the pipe. Each holiday meal adds another layer. Over time that coating catches food particles and narrows the pipe until the sink stops draining.

Running hot water or adding dish soap does not solve the problem. It only carries the grease a little farther down the line before it cools and sticks. The City of Wichita runs a grease control program for restaurants specifically to protect city sewer lines from stoppages caused by fats, oils and grease. The same thing happens on a smaller scale in the pipes under your house.

What to do with grease instead

Let pan drippings and cooking oil cool, pour them into a can, jar or other sealable container, and throw it in the trash once it has solidified. Wipe greasy pans and roasting trays with a paper towel before washing them. If you deep-fry a turkey, let the oil cool completely before you deal with it, and never pour it down a sink, toilet or storm drain.

Garbage Disposal Do's and Don'ts for the Holiday

A garbage disposal is built for small amounts of soft food scraps, not for clearing an entire Thanksgiving prep counter. The most common holiday disposal jams come from foods that seem harmless.

Keep these out of the disposal

Potato peels turn into a thick starchy paste that can glue the drain shut. Celery, onion skins and other stringy vegetables wrap around the disposal and tangle in the pipe. Turkey bones and skin are too hard to grind or mostly fat. Rice, pasta and stuffing keep swelling after they go down. Coffee grounds and eggshells settle into a gritty sludge in the trap. And grease and gravy cause the same buildup described above.

Use it the right way

Scrape plates into the trash or a compost bin first and use the disposal only for small leftovers. Run cold water before, during and for several seconds after grinding, and feed scraps in a little at a time instead of all at once. If the disposal hums but will not spin, turn it off and leave it off. Never put your hand inside, and do not pour a chemical drain cleaner into a jammed disposal, which can damage the unit and create a hazard for whoever works on it next.

Spread Out the Load on Your Plumbing

Your drain lines can only move so much water at once. On the big day, a little timing goes a long way.

Wait to run the dishwasher until the kitchen sink is not in heavy use, and try to space out loads of laundry and showers if guests are staying the night. Running the dishwasher, washing machine and a shower at the same time on the same drain line is a common way to find out that a main line has a partial clog.

Help your guests help your toilet

Put a small wastebasket in the guest bathroom so wipes, paper towels and other items have somewhere to go besides the toilet. Even wipes labeled "flushable" do not break down the way toilet paper does. Keep a plunger in plain sight so a guest is not stuck hunting for one, and make sure everyone in the house knows where the toilet's shut-off valve is, usually on the wall behind and below the tank.

Know Your Main Shut-Off Before You Need It

If a supply line bursts under the sink or a toilet keeps overflowing, you want to stop the water in seconds, not minutes. Find your home's main water shut-off now, make sure it turns, and show another adult in the house where it is. Freezing nights are common in Wichita by Thanksgiving, so this is also a good time to disconnect garden hoses from outdoor faucets and make sure those faucets are shut off and drained.

When to Call a Plumber Instead of Waiting It Out

Some problems will not wait until Monday. Call a professional if you notice:

Water backing up in more than one fixture, such as a tub filling when the toilet is flushed or the kitchen sink gurgling when the washer drains. That usually points to a main sewer line clog, not a single drain.

Sewage odors from drains or the basement floor drain.

A disposal that leaks from the bottom or trips the breaker repeatedly.

Water under a sink or around the base of a toilet that comes back after you dry it.

Plungers and over-the-counter drain chemicals cannot clear a main line, and harsh chemicals can damage older pipes. A licensed plumber can locate the blockage, clear it properly and tell you whether there is a bigger issue, like tree roots in an older sewer line, that will cause the same problem next holiday.

Get Ready for the Holidays with Midwest Mechanical

If a drain is already slow, your disposal is acting up or you just want peace of mind before a house full of guests, Midwest Mechanical can help. Our plumbers handle drain cleaning, garbage disposal repair and replacement, leak repairs and sewer line problems for homes across the Wichita area. Call us at (316) 226-8859 or schedule online, and get it taken care of before the holiday rush.

While we are there, ask about our Club Membership. For $180 a year per system, members get a spring AC tune-up and a fall furnace tune-up, priority service and discounts on repairs, so your heating system is ready for winter guests too.