Maintaining your Main Line this Mother’s Day

As Mother’s Day approaches this weekend, I recall something my mom shared about cooking, “don’t pour grease down the drain”. When I was 12, I didn’t really get the lesson. Decades later, as a homeowner, husband and father of two, I can fully appreciate this old adage. Which brings us to this week’s blog topic: your main line.

We put all kinds of stuff down the drain; don’t wait until you have a clog to see what's down there. Do you know the health of your main line? Industry recommendation is to conduct a sewer scope of your main line every 5 years.

Grease is a leading culprit to unhealthy main lines. When it comes off the bacon, it’s a liquid, but as it cools this liquid becomes a stinky, sticky mess that loves to stick to drain pipes. Mom always said “don’t pour grease down the drain”. Of course, we always listened to mom….or did we?? When it comes to grease, you can bet we always pour it in a cup. Did you know that you’ll still find some build up in the main line from remnants of grease on dishes, pans, and utensils? This grease causes other particles and matter that pass through our pipes to stick to the pipe walls as well, eventually creating build up of matter that could lead to clogged pipes and unwanted backups.

Trees are also another culprit to main line problems. Roots find their way into the smallest of cracks and make them big ones. Once the roots move into the pipes, they catch everything in their path.   

Conducting a sewer scope on your main line will identify a problematic situation before it becomes a costly repair. Replacing small sections of the pipe cost fractions of repairing the entire main line. A sewer scope is a visual inspection of every inch of your mainline; you receive a video recording (popcorn optional) to identify any trouble spots. This video can be shared with plumbers for quoting and estimating, so that you can budget repairs in a 2-5 year home plan. An overflowing main line isn’t pretty. My wife and I had that unfortunate experience 1 month after buying our first home many years ago. Keep mom happy this year with a healthy main line; schedule your sewer scope with Western Home Inspections today!

Happy Mother’s Day!!