2 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Your Home Has a Blocked Bathtub Drain
Posted on: 20 May 2016
When your home has a blocked bathtub drain, you might try a few simple home remedies to get it flowing again, and sometime adding baking soda and vinegar or just using a plunger on the drain can be enough to clear a simple clog. However, there are some things that many homeowners do when their drains are blocked that can actually make the situation worse and wind up costing them even more money down the road. Note a few of those mistakes here so you can avoid them yourself and protect your home and its plumbing.
1. Avoid using a snake
A plumbing snake is meant to clear clogs and blockages, so why would you avoid using it on your own? The simple reason is that a plumbing snake is usually harder to manage than you might realize; you can easily get it caught on a connector and cause damage to the plumbing pipes. You might also simply push the clog further into the drain if you don't know how to gently ease the snake through the clog or if you use the wrong size snake. Rather than try this on your own, have a plumber use a snake if necessary so it's used properly and safely.
2. Don't take the pipes apart
If you have access to the pipes behind or under the drain that is clogged, don't think you can or should start taking them apart. This might work when the kitchen sink's garbage disposal is clogged, as those pipes are easy to separate and then reattach, but plumbing pipes connected to a bathtub drain may be more difficult to securely connect than you realize. If you don't have the right tools, you might not be able to secure the flanges that connect the pipes, and a leak might form.
Also, the clog itself might be too large or complicated for you to manage; taking apart one pipe might actually allow the materials to travel to down another part of the pipes, making the problem worse. There might also be tree roots that are making their way through the pipes, and taking apart the connectors and sections of pipe can mean pulling the tree roots even further into those pipes. Rather than assuming that you can remove a pipe and then clear a clog and quickly put the pipes back together, have a plumber manage this if needed.
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