Do you know what’s not fun? A blocked drain.
If you’re lucky, dealing with a blocked drain is a quick fix that only requires a toilet plunger and a few minutes of your time. If you’re not lucky, you could end up having to dig a trench in your yard and facing an expensive pipe repair bill.
But before you get there, you need to know what you’re dealing with. How do you even know you have a blocked drain? Let’s look at 4 telltale signs.
1. A Stinky Bathroom
Admittedly, there are other reasons your bathroom could be stinky. However, what if there are no piles of stinky socks in the laundry hamper and no one has made a special delivery in the bathroom for a while?
That foul smell could be coming from one of the drains.
Though water is really the only thing that should be going down your drains, bits of other debris can still run down them from time to time. Soap scum and hair are common in bathroom drains and bits of food and grease are common in the kitchen.
All that junk sitting there rotting isn’t going to smell nice and that stench is going to come floating out of the drain sooner or later.
2. Gurgling in the Pipe
Aside from unpleasant aromas, blocked up drains can make strange noises. Because of the blockage, water will back up, trapping air down in the pipe.
As these air bubbles seek to escape, you’ll hear gurgling noises, similar to what you usually hear when draining a tubful of water. However, if you hear these noises a while after the water has already gone down the drain, there could be a partial blockage slowing the flow.
3. Slow Draining
This one is a fairly obvious sign that something is blocking your drain. If the water is taking forever to drain from your tub or sink, there must be a blockage of some sort.
4. An Overflowing Basin
If your sink, tub, or (heaven-forbid) toilet is overflowing, that’s a surefire sign that you have a blockage in the pipe. The water doesn’t have anywhere to go so it backs up in the basin and if you don’t shut it off, it will overflow onto your floor.
Sometimes you can clear blocked drains with DIY methods like using a toilet plunger or fashioning a drain snake out of an old wire coat hanger. Unfortunately, that won’t always work. Sometimes you will have to call a plumber to unblock your drains.
Enjoy Free-Flowing Drains
Regardless of whether you can clear the drain yourself or you have a call a plumber, don’t worry. Once you have diagnosed your blocked drain, you’re one step closer to a free-flowing drain once more.
All it will take is the appropriate action to remove the blockage and you’ll be good to go!
