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Welcome to Alabama First Home Inspections with home inspector Adam Minnick! We look forward to keeping you up to date with what is going on and to give you tips to help keep your home in the best shape it can be.
Owning a home is always a work in progress (even on the new builds). We hope you will enjoy our tips this month. Our focus this month is on our kitchen sink drains. A little maintenance helps to avoid an expensive plumber bill later on. For the DIYer, follow Adams video where he shows how to unclog the drain if you need to take the pipes apart and clean it. Today, we discuss 5 ways to keep your kitchen sink from being clogged in the first place.
Top 5 Ways to Keep Your Sink Drains Clean
1. Scraping your dishes: getting rid of food debris helps to make it easier to rinse your plates and to keep bigger particles and greases from getting in your drain pipes. Always clean off the plates before rinsing and putting them in the dishwasher (don't listen to the dish detergent adds...lol)
2. Use a sink strainer: not the my favorite part of dishes, but it helps to keep the larger particles of food out of the drain (yep helps with straws too). Here is an example of a cheaper one off of amazon.
3. Run hot water in your sink: this is a great way to help clear your drain and should be done 1x a week as regular maintenance
4. Use a little bleach: I'm not a big chemical person, but pouring a little bleach and letting it sit for an hour can help rid your drains of bacteria (drains can get nasty). Make sure to flush this out with lots of hot water
5. Make cleaning solution: there are a couple good cleaning solutions to help clean drains you can make from basic household ingredients.
- First up! White vinegar: Pour 1 cup of vinegar and let it sit 30 min, rinse with lots of hot water
- 1/2 cup of baking soda, followed by 2 quarts of hot water, this will help absorb odors and clean
- 1 tbsp salt, 1/4 c vinegar (let this sit 1 hour) rinse with hot water
Home maintenance never ends, but the rewards of being proactive help keep expensive problems from coming up later on. Plumbing can be very expensive and impacts your health, as well. Weekly proactive maintenance and taking care of the clogs when there is a problem will help elimate those costly repairs later on.
No one enjoys the "oh no the sink is clogged" moments in life. With kids and time it occasionally does happen. Watch Adam's video and subscribe to his youtube channel. A great visual for the DIYers out there. We hope this helps you guys to enjoy your home more and worry about the problems a little less.
Be sure to follow last months blog on Home Toxins Blog | Alabama First Home I (alabamafirstinspections.com)
We look forward to hearing what you would like to hear more about. Always remember when buying or selling give us a call. We would love to help you know your home more so you can know what issues may be there or what you can work on in the upcoming process of selling your home. Have a great Thanksgiving week this month. Always remember to enjoy the special moments with family and friends. Have a great one!
-Adam
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