The idea of sewer odors drifting through your home is an unpleasant scenario. Unfortunately, it something that you may have to deal with at some point, and it indicates trouble with the drainpipes or possibly even the sewer line that runs from your house to the center of the street. There are different reasons that your drains may start emitting terrible smells, and most of them will require calling plumbing professionals to fix. Below, we’ll look at 4 of the more common reasons for bad-smelling drains. (more…)
My Drain Company Blog : Posts Tagged ‘Drain Cleaning’
4 Reasons That Your Drains Smell Bad
Monday, August 1st, 2016Why Can’t I Just Use a Drain Snake from the Store to Clear My Drains?
Monday, March 14th, 2016Drain snakes (also known as drain augers) are one of the most useful tools in a plumber’s arsenal when it comes to drain cleaning and removing tough drainpipe clogs. Although plumbers also make use of hydro-jetting for drain cleaning, the drain snake remains one of the essential pieces of equipment for taking the best care of drains.
Why Regular Drain Cleaning Is Good for Your Plumbing
Monday, August 3rd, 2015When a serious clog blocks a kitchen or bathroom drain in your house—a clog that a standard plunger can’t remove—you will need to call on plumbing professionals right away for the necessary drain cleaning using motorized drain snakes and hydro-jetters. There is no better way to assure that you’ll have your drain cleared out without causing serious damage to the plumbing or a rapid return of the clog. (more…)
The Best Plumbing Advice You’re Probably Not Taking
Monday, July 6th, 2015There is plenty of excellent advice out there regarding how to take better care of the plumbing in your house so that you won’t run into major repair emergencies or the need to replace pipes and appliances early. Some examples: lists of various substances that you should never let go down the drains, or how to see that the garbage disposal doesn’t jam up. (more…)
The Dangers of F.O.G. (Fat, Oil, Grease) and Your Kitchen Drains
Monday, April 6th, 2015Drain cleaning is a service that you should have done on a regular basis for your kitchen. Professionals will use a variety of high-end equipment, such as motorized drain snakes and hydro-jetters, to thoroughly cleanse the drains in the kitchen of built-up food particles. This will help keep your kitchen efficient and avoid trouble from slow drains and full clogs in the future.
For professionals drain cleaning in Glendale, CA, call My Drain Company Inc. We offer 24-hour emergency service for times when you have surprise clogs or other urgent plumbing repair needs.
Aside from arranging for routine drain cleaning from experienced plumbers, there are some important steps you can take to see that your drains stay in the best shape possible, for as long as possible. One of these is to avoid pouring F.O.G. down any of your kitchen drains.
Wait… what is F.O.G.?
The initials F.O.G. stand for “fat, oil, and grease.” These products of cooking, food preparation, and clean-up are one of the worst enemies your drains pipes and sewer lines have. Restaurants and other food service companies use special grease traps to prevent these substances from harming the plumbing and the sewer system, but residential kitchens usually aren’t equipped with these appliances, so you will have to take care that you keep F.O.G. out of your drains in the first place.
The reason that fat, oil, and grease are so problematic for a home’s plumbing is that in their hot, liquid form they appear harmless and often get poured down the drain or the garbage disposal without thought. They can infiltrate a long way down into the pipes before they cool down and start to transform from liquids into waxy solids. This is when they begin to create trouble.
Solid F.O.G. will coat the inside of drainpipes, significantly reducing the volume available for waste water. This will make it easier for clogs to up, and much harder to remove them. If F.O.G. gets into the garbage disposal, it will eventually jam up the flywheel and other mechanical components, requiring that the system receive repairs.
The best way to deal with liquid fat, oil, and grease is to pour it out into a separate receptacle that you remove to the regular trash. Clean off excess F.O.G. from plates with a paper towel and put the towel in the trash. If you do start to encounter problems due to fat, oil, and grease in your kitchen drains, call for a professional plumber to use hydro-jetting to cleanse it out.
My Drain Company Inc offers excellent drain cleaning service, and we will take care of any major clogs you may encounter. We have provided high quality kitchen plumbing services with the best equipment for over 15 years.
Signs that You Need Drain Cleaning
Wednesday, March 11th, 2015Everyone knows that when your drain isn’t, well, draining, that you should call a plumber. Is that the only time that you should call for professional drain cleaning, though? In fact, there are a number of warning indicators that you should have your drains cleaned. Not all of them constitute a plumbing emergency. However, if you ignore these signs you may find yourself with a much bigger plumbing problem on your hands in short order. Let’s take a look at some of the signs that you need drain cleaning.
Slow Draining
Most people first notice a problem with their drains when they become completely clogged. If you pay close attention, however, you can actually identify a problem with your drain long before it gets to that point. Drain clogs form from the outside in, as the material sticks to the inside of the pipe and begins to build toward the center. This gradually restricts the flow of water through the pipe, until it finally clogs up completely. So, if you notice that your drain seems to be draining more and more slowly, you should call for a plumber to inspect it as soon as possible.
Bad Smells
Your plumbing system is designed to vent sewer gases away from your drains and out of your house. Without this ventilation system, you’d have a perpetual miasma of stink wafting out of every appliance in your house connected to the sewer system. If this system becomes blocked or otherwise compromised, it can allow sewer gases to drift up through your drains. If you only notice bad smells coming out of one of your drains, then there’s a good chance that you need that drain cleaned or repaired. If the smell is coming from every drain in your house, the problem is rooted deeper in the plumbing system. Either way, you’re going to need to call a professional plumber.
These are just a few of the signs that you need drain cleaning. If you suspect that your drains might need cleaning for any reason, call My Drain Company. We provide quality drain cleaning services throughout Chatsworth.
Why Do I Need Clean My Drains Regularly?
Friday, January 30th, 2015Clogged drains are a frequent and frustrating problem for homeowners everywhere. They can be caused by a wide variety of factors, depending on the location of the drain. Regardless of the type of clog, however, none of them are good for your plumbing or your peace of mind. A lot of people hold off on hiring a plumber until the drain really starts to back up. While you probably don’t need to hire a plumber every few weeks, you should be cleaning out your drains yourself on a fairly regular basis. Let’s take a look at why you need to clean your drains regularly.
An Ounce of Prevention…
Cleaning your drains to prevent clogs is all about preserving the health of your plumbing, which also saves you money. A clog can cause a great deal of damage, depending on how bad it is. If a clog crops up that you can’t handle, which will happen if you don’t clean your drains regularly, you’ll need to hire a plumber to deal with it. The plumber will often be able to unclog the pipe using special equipment. However, the problem can sometimes necessitate replacing an entire section of pipe, which is a cost you don’t want to accrue.
Cleaning your drains on a regular basis also drastically lessens the frequency of major clogs occurring, saving you a call to the plumber and increasing the lifespan of your drains.
Procedure
So, how to you actually clear out your drains without the specialized knowledge and tools that a plumber possesses? Well, there are a couple of different ways to do it. The most popular way is to pour about half a gallon of hot or boiling water down your drains. This flushes out any detritus that might be building up on the walls of your pipes. Baking soda and vinegar are also quite popular solutions, and are excellent at removing grease and oils from the drains.
If you do have a clog that you can’t seem to get rid of, call My Drain Company and schedule an appointment with us today. We provide professional drain cleaning services in the Glendale area.
How Plumbers Use Drains Snakes to Clean Drains
Friday, September 12th, 2014If you have a tough clog, it can inconvenience many of your daily activities. So when water pools up at the bottom of your tub or won’t budge while you do the dishes, you may look for the quickest solutions to clear the drains. For some clogs, a plunger may do the trick. But if the clog is too far down the drain pipe, you’ll need something that can reach down much further.
That’s where the idea behind liquid drain cleaners comes from. This home remedy, often found in hardware stores and even most grocery stores, claims to have the ability to rid your drain of clogs. And while some cleaners may be effective at dissolving some common sources of blockage, usually hair, they fail at removing many other clogs and may instead push them further into the pipes. Besides, the chemicals in liquid drain cleaners and can severely damage your skin and eyes.
Plumbers do not rely on toxic liquid drain cleaners for professional drain cleaning. Instead, they are armed with the right equipment to get tough clogs cleared out completely. While they may have several tools available for drain cleaning, like powerful hydrojetting technology, perhaps the most commonly used is the drain snake.
Drain snakes reach deep into the pipes to break up clogs and bring them to the surface. A drain snake is basically a long, thick wire that often has a coiled end. The wire is rolled up, and may be operated with a manual crank, but more powerful units are motorized. When the wire is released into the pipe and wound back up, the coil catches small objects, hair, food, and some of the sludge that may line the pipes. Alternatively, a plumber may attach a fixture to the end of the drain snake that can break up particularly tough clogs into smaller pieces so they can flow down the drain with the wastewater.
At My Drain Company, we use drain snakes and other tools to rid your plumbing of the toughest clogs, and we use video pipe inspection to make sure that problems are cleared from your system entirely. When you need drain cleaning in Glendale, CA, give us a call!
Why Schedule Storm Drainage Service
Friday, September 5th, 2014Here in Glendale, CA, we haven’t seen much heavy rain in recent years. But when you’re entirely unprepared for rain, water may pool around your property, leak into your home, or flood your entire house. Water damage can seriously harm your foundation, while standing water means a buildup of mold and mildew which may cause problems with the indoor air quality, possibly triggering respiratory problems in some family members.
To keep water from leaking into your home, you need a storm drainage system to move this water into the sewer system instead. But if your storm drain hasn’t gotten a lot of attention lately, it may be clogged with dirt and debris. Scheduling drain cleaning services for your outdoor drains is the best way to ensure rainwater does not damage your property.
If you need storm drainage installation, you’ll need to call a professional plumber to find the best location for a new drain and ensure water flows without backing up onto your property. And if you’ve never had a professional examine your storm drains, now is the best time.
The Steps of Storm Drainage Service
During storm drainage service, the most important step a plumber takes is a thorough drain cleaning. Leaves, gravel, and dirt may build up in the drains over time if your drainage system does not get a lot of use, or heavy rainfall may carry these items into the drain. That’s why it’s important to schedule drain cleaning for your storm drains before a storm is predicted or after heavy rainfall.
During drain cleaning service, technicians use hydrojetting technology to essentially blast tough clogs into the sewer with high volumes of water. Then, a professional can examine your pipes to ensure the clogs are taken care of. A professional may also check to ensure your drain was installed properly so that water can flow down into the pipes.
You can help keep your storm drains relatively clear by disposing of yard waste properly and keeping your drains free of large blockages. But when you need professional drain cleaning in Glendale, call the experts at My Drain Company today!
Why Install a Storm Drain on Your Property?
Friday, April 4th, 2014It may sound odd to suggest that people who live in Southern California install storm drains on their property. Isn’t it too dry here and the rain too irregular for us to worry about storm drainage?
On the surface, the answer would seem to be “yes.” However, there’s more to storm drainage than the name implies, and there’s more to Southern California weather than the rest of the country knows about. A storm drain may be an ideal way to protect your home from water damage that might ruin its integrity and create safety issues.
My Drain Company offers storm drain installation from experts. We also do drain cleaning in Glendale, CA that will maintain your storm drain, no matter what disasters it may protect your home from.
The uses of a storm drain
Southern California doesn’t experience frequent rainstorm conditions, but the ones that have struck us have caused enormous amounts of damage… principally because our hills and streets do not have sufficient drainage to accommodate such a high level of water flow. Hillsides often wash away or turn into landslides because of heavy rainfall, and continuous rain—even moderate—will lead to street flooding because of poor drainage. If your property is in an area that has or could potentially have flooding issues during rainfall, the additional drainage ability of a storm drain will keep the excess water siphoned away from your home. A quality installer will know which type of storm drain installation will work best for your property: drain tile system, yard drain, or stairwell drain.
But flooding damage can come from sources other than harsh weather. A burst pipe in a water main can lead to massive amounts of water flooding onto your property that will continue until emergency repairs can shut off the water and fix the break. If you live on property that has a low water table, excess water can come up through the ground, and this will require a specific approach to storm drain installation in order to prevent it from damaging your home.
Maintenance and repair
After you have the proper storm drain put in, make sure that you keep it in good repair and well-maintained. Like any drain inside your home, a storm drain can develop clogging that will need cleaning. The extent of a storm drain requires that only professionals handle this task.
For professional drain cleaning in Glendale, CA and for all your needs for storm drain services, contact My Drain Company. If you are unsure about installing a storm drain, contact us for advice.
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