How Can Plumbing Be Ruined? (6 Ways)

Plumbing can be expensive and difficult to maintain. To avoid the burden of plumbing problems, it’s important to know common issues so you can prevent them before they happen..

The easiest way is to flush things that shouldn’t be flushed, using the toilet instead of the trash bin, shoving anything down the drain, using excessive drain cleaner, leaving a hose connected to the faucet during winter, and pouring grease down the drain.

What can damage plumbing?

When you are in someone else’s home, one of the things that you should never do is to damage that person’s plumbing.

In fact, that is something that you should always avoid doing because you don’t know how much that person will end up spending if you indeed damage his plumbing due to some sort of reckless thing that you did.

If you don’t want to damage your own home’s plumbing due to financial and hygienic reasons, it only follows that you should also make sure that you don’t damage another person’s plumbing.

That is what any decent person would do because you are merely a guest in someone’s home and the one thing you don’t want to do is to damage anything in his home.

That said, if you want to make sure that you don’t damage a person’s plumbing, the best thing to do is to avoid doing anything that you know will damage your own plumbing at home. This includes throwing anything in the drain even though you know yourself that you shouldn’t be throwing it down the drain.

Also, when you know for a fact that you shouldn’t be flushing something down the toilet, avoid doing that when you are in someone else’s home.

Also, the one thing that can damage plumbing in a way that will actually cause irreparable damage to the pipes is using a drain cleaner. While drain cleaners can be neat and useful when you want to clear your drains of any clogs that your plunger or snake can’t handle, misusing or overusing drain cleaners can end up damaging the pipes.

That’s because drain cleaners come with all sorts of chemicals that are strong enough to dissolve organic and inorganic materials found in your drain.

If they are strong enough to melt plastic and other similar things that may be stuck in your pipes, that means that drain cleaners could also very well damage your pipes regardless of what they may be made of.

They can even corrode metal pipes if left in the drain long enough. This is why you have to make sure that you limit your use of drain cleaners or flush them out of the drains as soon as they have unclogged the pipes.

How do you clog a pipe?

In the same way, clogging a pipe is also one of the things you should avoid doing when you are in someone else’s home.

Even though clogging a pipe isn’t something that will necessarily damage the home’s plumbing, it can still end up causing harm especially when the clog is actually so bad that it ends up requiring the owner of the house to use drastic measures such as leaving a drain cleaner overnight or even calling the plumber.

As such, it is best to avoid doing things that can end up clogging a person’s drains. One of the most common ways to clog a drain is to throw things that aren’t supposed to be thrown in a drain.

This includes solids that won’t easily break down in the drains or inorganic material that will take years to break down. Also, while you can probably throw organic materials that can easily break down, too much of them will eventually clog the drains

That said, is best to only make sure that only liquids go down the kitchen sink but make sure that you avoid throwing grease that can build up and clog the drains.

Also, when you are talking about the drains in the toilet, make sure that you only throw things that will easily break down such as organic matter (human waste). While paper can also break down in the drains, it still is best to avoid throwing it down the toilet because of how too much paper can clog any toilet.

6 things that ruin plumbing

So, now that you know the things that can easily damage plumbing and clog drains, here are some of the things that you can easily do when you want to ruin someone’s plumbing:

Flush things that shouldn’t be flushed

It should be obvious by now that you should only flush things that should be flushed down the toilet because your toilet’s pipes are only made to handle human waste and water. In some cases, paper can be flushed down the toilet such as toilet paper, which will easily break down. However, the fact of the matter is that even toilet paper can still end up clogging the toilet.

As such, flushing things that shouldn’t be flushed such as excessive paper or things that will never break down inside the pipes should easily damage a person’s plumbing. That’s why, if you want to keep the toilet’s pipes in top shape, make sure that you only flush organic matter such as human waste.

Using the toilet instead of the trash bin

In connection to what we said above, using the toilet to throw away things you shouldn’t be throwing away should be avoided if you don’t want to damage a person’s plumbing. But if you do want to damage a person’s plumbing, throw everything inside the toilet and treat it as a trash bin.

This includes regular things that you may be using on a day-to-day basis such as napkins, paper towels, sanitary wipes, and anything similar to those.

Shoving anything down the drain

Meanwhile, when it comes to the drains especially the kitchen sink, you can easily damage the plumbing by shoving anything down there. This includes things that you know can’t easily go down the drain such as large food items, paper, plastic, or grease.

So, the moment you shove anything down the drain, your drain will begin to clog with things that won’t break down in the pipes. These things will eventually build up to cause clogs that can be serious enough to damage your plumbing due to the pressure building up inside the pipes.

Using excessive drain cleaner

In relation to clogged pipes, drain cleaners can be useful for clearing the pipes up because of how the chemicals in drain cleaners are made to melt down or dissolve any material that may be causing the clog.

But, because the chemicals in the drain cleaner are so strong, they may end up corroding your pipes when left in the drain long enough after they have cleared the clog away.

As such, it is best to make sure that you limit your use of drain cleaners or to make sure that you flush them out as soon as you have noticed that the pipes have already been cleared up.

In most cases, try to limit using drain cleaners to twice or thrice a year or try using plungers or snakes before resorting to drain cleaners.

Leaving a hose connected to the faucet during winter

This might not seem like it should be much but leaving a hose connected to the faucet during the freezing season of winter can actually end up damaging your entire plumbing. That’s because a hose that is connected to the pipes can carry the cold air of the winter season into your pipes causing the liquids there to freeze or even damaging the pipes.

As you know, a metal that is exposed to extreme temperatures such as freezing cold can easily get damaged. So, by leaving a hose connected to the pipes during winter, you are actually exposing the plumbing to damage.

Pouring grease down the drain.

Again, something as simple as pouring grease down the drain can also damage a person’s plumbing. That’s because grease doesn’t easily break down in the pipes as it doesn’t mix well with water.

So, even if you do try to flush grease down with water, it will still most likely stay in the pipes long enough to cause clogs. This is why plumbers will always tell you to avoid throwing anything greasy down the drain or else you will end up clogging or damaging your pipes in the long run.

Conclusion

Ruining plumbing actually involves a lot of common sense because most of the things that can end up causing damage to a person’s plumbing are pretty much simple enough for anyone to know.

This includes stuffing anything down the drain or thinking that it is alright to throw anything down the toilet.

As such, the golden rule to follow here is that whatever you don’t want to do in your own home’s plumbing should also be avoided when you are in another person’s home. This is the best way for you to avoid damaging another person’s plumbing and causing him to shell out a ton of money to fix the pipes.