With only about a week to spare before the holiday season is in full swing, you might think you’ve missed the window of opportunity for plumbing prep work. Think again. Doing a little bit of leg work now can help prevent a plumbing service call.

Having friends and family over for Thanksgiving? We know the last thing you want is to have to call a plumber while you’ve got a house full of people ready to indulge in Thanksgiving dinner. Here are a few really easy and important things you can do to prepare without having to call a plumber.

Buy a drain screen for your shower.

You can pick up a mesh drain screen for $3-$4 at the hardware store. When you have family staying with you for the holidays, you don’t want to have to deal with a clogged shower drain. A drain cover can prevent clogs by keeping large clumps of hair, soap, hair ties, shampoo caps, etc. out of your drain.

But what if you already have a clogged drain? A mesh screen can’t do anything about this. You should schedule a plumbing service call before your guests arrive to prevent the drain from becoming even more clogged. Imagine you have a slowly draining bathtub already, and you double the number of people bathing every day. Bad news.

Be kind to your garbage disposal.

Last week, we posted 6 Thanksgiving Dishes That Are Bad for Your Garbage Disposal, outlining what Thanksgiving foods you shouldn’t put down on your garbage disposal. Not only should you avoid putting these foods at your disposal altogether, but you should also avoid putting large amounts of food in at once.

Your garbage disposal can’t handle large amounts of food scraps. The motor is pretty strong, but it works best when you run smaller amounts of food with the water running, rather than everything all at once.

Since you’re likely to be cooking more, it makes sense that you’ll have more food waste. You are only doing yourself a favor if you allow your garbage disposal time to process the waste. In the long run, you’re prolonging the life of your garbage disposal by not making that motor work so hard.

Invest in trash cans.

If your guests don’t know where to dispose of their trash, it could end up being flushed down the toilet. If you’ve ever read any of our other blog posts, then you know how much we harp on this…

Toilet paper begins to break down as soon as it gets wet. Anything else should be a no-go in your toilet. Even tampons can cause some serious problems for your drain since they’re made to expand and absorb water (read more here). Some people even put little signs or notes up instructing their guests on what not to flush.

Make trash cans visible in your kitchen and bathrooms. Trash cans are cheap and if your guests can see where they should be putting their trash, they’re way less likely to just put it down a drain.

These 3 things are easy. Spend $10 and 10 minutes of your time to set your home up for holiday success and avoid having to call a plumber.

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