How To Handle Kitchen Grease Clogs
Most cooks rely on some kind of fat or oil to provide a nonstick coating to pans and enhance the flavor of food. While grease can be a wonderful ingredient in the kitchen, unfortunately, it can also badly damage your pipes. Grease can congeal inside your pipes, causing clogs and poor drainage. Here are three things you can do to manage the situation.
1. Stop sending solids down the drain.
If you notice that your kitchen sink is draining slowly, you should contact a plumber as soon as you can. Emergency plumbers are available to help at any time, even when your plumbing issue occurs outside of normal business hours. Until your plumber arrives, you can continue using your sink as long as it's still draining. However, you should stop putting solids down the drain, even if you have a garbage disposal. Even if it's chopped into small pieces, solid food can get trapped in congealed grease, increasing the size of your clog.
2. Allow the kitchen sink to fully drain.
In order to remove the blockage from your pipes, your emergency plumber may need to open them up. In order to do this without causing flooding, they will turn off the water to your kitchen before beginning work. Any water left standing in the sink will end up on your floor if the plumber needs to open your pipes. If your kitchen sink is draining slowly due to a grease clog, leave ample time for it to fully drain. If it's draining too slowly, you can help it along by bailing water out of the sink and disposing of it in another household drain.
3. Give your plumber space to work.
Your plumber will probably need to manually remove solidified grease from your pipes. Drain augers that work on other clogs may not be sufficient for the job. Instead, your emergency plumber will probably use a sewer jetter. A sewer jetter is a tool with a long, flexible head that can fit around the curves in your pipes. It sprays pressurized water that can blast away any grease that has accumulated in your pipes.
Sewer jetters can be noisy, and they may splash water in a small area around your kitchen drain. You can prepare for this by giving your emergency plumber plenty of space to work. Move clean dishes, paper towels, and other household items away from the sink. Keep kids and pets away from the area so they don't get scared by the noise while your plumber eradicates your grease clog.
Contact an emergency plumber today for more information.
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