Nothing kills the holiday vibe faster than a backed-up sink or an overflowing toilet when you’ve got a house full of guests.
The week of Thanksgiving is basically the Super Bowl for your home’s plumbing system. More people using the bathrooms, everyone showering before dinner, a kitchen sink and disposal working overtime with potato peels and grease… It’s a lot. And if your plumbing isn’t ready for it, you’re going to have problems at the worst possible time.
What actually goes wrong on Thanksgiving
Let’s talk about the usual suspects. The kitchen sink is enemy number one. When you’re prepping a massive meal, it’s tempting to let everything go down the drain. Potato peels, turkey fat, vegetable scraps… it all seems fine in the moment, but that stuff builds up fast. Grease is the real troublemaker. It goes down hot and liquid, then cools and solidifies in your pipes like plaque in an artery. Not a pretty picture, and definitely not something you want to deal with when you’re trying to serve pumpkin pie.
Then there’s the garbage disposal. People treat these things like they can handle anything, but they have limits. Fibrous stuff like celery and onion skins? They wrap around the blades. Starchy stuff like pasta and rice? They expand and turn into a gummy mess. Hard stuff like bones or fruit pits? Yeah, your disposal is not a fan of those either.
Bathrooms take a beating too. When you’ve got multiple generations of family members all showering and getting ready at the same time, your water heater is working overtime. And if someone’s been a little too generous with the toilet paper (we’re looking at you, kids), you could be dealing with a clog right when Uncle Bob needs to use the facilities.
How to avoid the nightmare scenario
The good news? Most Thanksgiving plumbing disasters are totally preventable. You just need to be a little proactive.
Start with your kitchen sink and drains. Keep a strainer in the sink to catch food particles. Scrape plates into the trash before rinsing them. And here’s the big one: don’t pour grease down the drain. Ever. Let it cool in a can or jar, then toss it in the trash. Your pipes will thank you.
As for the garbage disposal, be picky about what you put in there. Coffee grounds, egg shells, and bones go in the trash. Fibrous vegetables go in the trash. When you do use the disposal, run cold water before, during, and for about 30 seconds after you’re done. The cold water helps flush everything through and keeps grease from sticking to the sides of your pipes.
Give your bathrooms some attention too. If your toilets have been running slow or your showers have been draining sluggishly, now is the time to deal with it. Don’t wait until you’ve got a house full of people to discover you’ve got a problem. And if you’re worried about your water heater keeping up with demand, consider staggering shower times so you’re not asking it to heat 50 gallons of water all at once.
One more thing: know where your main water shut-off valve is. We really hope you won’t need it, but if something does go sideways, being able to quickly turn off the water can be the difference between a minor inconvenience and a major flood. Take two minutes right now to find it and make sure everyone in your household knows where it is too.
When to call for backup
Sometimes, despite your best efforts, things go wrong. Maybe you’ve got a slow drain that you’ve been ignoring for weeks, or a toilet that’s been getting finicky. If you’re noticing warning signs now, don’t gamble on making it through the holiday. Get it checked out before Thanksgiving week hits.
And if disaster does strike during the holiday? Don’t panic. Don’t dump a bottle of chemical drain cleaner down the sink and hope for the best. That stuff can actually make things worse if you’ve got a serious clog, and it can damage your pipes. Give us a call instead. We’ve seen every type of Thanksgiving plumbing emergency you can imagine, and we know how to fix them fast.
Get ahead of the game
Look, we’d much rather help you prevent a problem than come out on Thanksgiving Day to fix one. If your plumbing has been giving you any kind of trouble lately, or if you just want peace of mind that everything’s in good shape before the big day, reach out to us. We can do a quick check to make sure your drains are clear, your water heater is ready for the extra demand, and your toilets are flushing like champs.
Ready to make sure your plumbing doesn’t become the main topic of conversation this Thanksgiving?
Schedule service with Biard & Crockett or give us a call at (714) 602-1299. We’ll help you avoid the holiday plumbing disasters and keep the focus where it belongs: on that turkey and those awesome sides.