What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Thanksgiving? If your first thought was a clogged drain, you might be a plumber!
Thanksgiving is the perfect time to gather and enjoy the company of friends and family while enjoying delicious, traditional food dishes. From turkey to pumpkin pie everyone has a favorite dish they can’t wait to dive into. Before you slowly slip into a food coma, the crew at Horton Plumbing wanted to provide you tips on what you should and should not put down your kitchen and toilet drains. Thanksgiving is the busiest holiday for our plumbers who spend the day fielding calls from homeowners with clogged drains and broken garbage disposals. 
Prevent a clogged drain this holiday season by avoiding the following:
- Avoid disposing greasy foods, fat, and oil down the drain. Grease gradually accumulates and can interfere with the function of your garbage disposal and clog your drain lines.
- Don’t put fibrous fruits or vegetables like corn husks, onions, lettuce, celery, or artichokes down the disposal. The fibers can get tangled and end up jamming the disposal and causing a blockage to occur within the drain.
- Avoid putting potato peels down the garbage disposal. The starch from the potatoes turns into a thick paste that sticks to the disposal blades causing the disposal not to function properly. The large pieces of skin tend to clump together which can lead to a stopped-up drain.
- Foods that expand when introduced to water, such as rice and pasta, should never be put into the disposal. As they expand and start to stick together a clogged drain becomes inevitable.
- Animal bones are another don’t when it comes to things you should avoid using your garbage disposal to dispose of. Not only can the bones get stuck in the blades and jam up the disposal, they also easily get stuck on other debris within the line causing a build up of debris that clogs the line.
The bottom line is this, if you don’t want to celebrate this Thanksgiving with a Horton Plumbing technician, avoid putting anything you aren’t 100% sure is safe for the drain line into the garbage disposal; just throw it in the trash can. But, if Aunt Sally accidentally drops a turkey leg down the drain and jams the disposal, give us a call. Horton Plumbing will fix the problem and get your Thanksgiving back on track.
