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3 Simple Ways to Avoid a Sewer Backup and Save Your Home from Going Down the Toilet

3 Simple Ways to Avoid a Sewer Backup and Save Your Home from Going Down the Toilet

Published By: Vince Vince

What goes down must not come up! If you want to avoid the mess of a sewer backup, these tips are for you.

Whether you are doing laundry or using the toilet, the last thing you want to happen is for whatever you are sending down the drain to come back into your home. You don’t need an active imagination to picture what that would look like—just think of the damage to your carpets and hardwood flooring!

Fortunately, you have a chance to stop that from happening if you know the signs. Use these tips to avoid a major sewer backup.

Don’t Ignore That Bad Smell

Do your drains smell like sewage? That’s one of the signs that you have a possible sewer backup on your hands. When a drain gets clogged, whether from roots invading your main line or from something that just got stuck, the material that gets stuck in the pipes decomposes, which produces a foul smell.

It is possible that the smell is coming from a clog that is isolated to a single drain, but if conventional methods of clearing the blocked drain do not work, calling a plumber might be necessary to determine whether the clog is something more serious, like a clogged sewer.

Stop Believing in Coincidences…When It Comes to Clogged Drains

One drain clogged? OK, maybe things aren’t so bad. Two or more drains clogged at the same time? Now you might be at risk for a sewer backup.

To understand why two or more clogged drains are a sign that your sewer is backed up, let’s think about how your plumbing is structured. Imagine that your plumbing—from each drain down in your home to the main sewer line running up to your house—is a river system. The drains are smaller tributary rivers that feed into the larger river of the main sewer line.

When the sewer line is backed up, those tributaries have nowhere to send their water, which means they are going to force water out of other tributaries.

Give Your Toilet a Good Listen

The next time you flush the toilet, take a moment to listen to it. What do you hear? If you hear a bubbling noise, that might mean that a sewer backup is not far away.

When you have a clog in your sewer line, air often gets trapped in the pipe. As water flows past the clog (clogs do not always completely block water from passing through) the air can escape, causing bubbles and gurgling noises.

Sometimes you can even see these air bubbles escaping. To test it out, fill up your sink with a few inches of water. Next, drain it. As the water goes down the drain, look for small bubbles coming up from the pipes.

Don’t Let a Sewer Backup Ruin Your Day—Get Professional Help Before It’s Too Late!

The day your sewer backs up into your home is a day that no one wants to experience. Do you suspect that you might have a clogged sewer line? Contact us today so we can schedule a home visit.