Holiday Plumbing Disasters: How to Avoid Kitchen & Bathroom Nightmares

The holiday season in the Chicago, IL area is magical: the lights, the snow, and the warm glow of friends and family offer a quintessential holiday experience. But here at Rocket Plumbing, we know the holidays can also bring a different kind of experience: emergency plumbing calls. 

Don’t want to let holiday plumbing disasters ruin your fun? From clogged drains to overflowing toilets to malfunctioning garbage disposals, let’s avoid kitchen and bathroom nightmares together. 

In this edition of the Rocket Plumbing blog, we’re offering holiday plumbing tips to keep your festivities — and pipes! — flowing.

1. Treat Your Garbage Disposal with Care

The kitchen is the heart of the home, especially during the holidays. It’s also the primary source of many holiday plumbing problems. When you’re hosting guests and cooking for large parties, it’s tempting to use the garbage disposal like a trash can, but this can quickly become a recipe for disaster. 

Avoid Specific Types of Waste

Your disposal is designed to handle small amounts of soft food waste, not massive post-dinner cleanup. To avoid unwanted blockages and plumbing issues, use discretion as to what types of items to put in the garbage disposal. The following items are the most dangerous enemies of your kitchen sink’s plumbing:

• Fats, Oils, and Grease (FOG): This is the number one offender. Hot gravy, turkey drippings, and cooking oil might flow down as a liquid, but once they cool inside your pipes, they solidify into sticky, concrete-like clogs. Always pour FOG into a can or jar, let it cool, and then toss it in the trash.
• Starchy and Fibrous Foods: Foods that expand with water, like rice, pasta, and potato peels, will swell up and create dense blockages. Fibrous material, such as celery stalks, artichoke leaves, or asparagus, wraps around the disposal blades, leading to jams and motor burnout.
• Eggshells and Coffee Grounds: Contrary to popular belief, eggshells do not sharpen the blades; their thin membrane sticks to the sides of the disposal. Coffee grounds are dense and granular, and they quickly accumulate into heavy sludge in the trap and pipe bends.

Rocket Plumbing Tip: Disposal Discipline

A hot tip from our experts? Before running the disposal, turn on a strong, cold stream of water. Feed the waste slowly rather than stuffing it all down the disposal at once. Then, always keep the cold water running for about 30 seconds after the grinding stops. This helps flush the finely ground particles all the way through your plumbing system.

2. Preventing Toilet Overload

Hosting guests over the holidays? A working toilet is a necessity. 

More guests can mean more flushes, and this increased toilet usage puts a serious strain on your bathroom plumbing. Even if your bathroom plumbing seemed to be working just fine, overuse can often reveal pre-existing plumbing issues that you didn’t even know you had. Avoid holiday bathroom plumbing emergencies with these tips.

The Clog Culprits: Paper and Foreign Objects

While the toilet can handle a lot, it cannot handle excessive paper or foreign objects. The most frequent cause of toilet issues during the holidays is a direct result of guest use. A lot of homes in the Chicago, IL area are older homes with sensitive plumbing, and we need to remain mindful of what you should never flush down the toilet.

A few items to avoid when trying to avert clogged toilet emergencies are:

• Excessive Toilet Paper: Guests unfamiliar with your home’s plumbing might use too much toilet paper, or use thicker, plushier brands that don’t dissolve easily. Only keep toilet paper that you want to have flushed in the bathroom, which may mean avoiding the more plush types of rolls.
• Wipes (Even the “Flushable” Ones): No matter what the packaging says, never flush wipes, paper towels, or tissues. These materials are designed to be stronger than toilet paper and simply do not dissolve, combining with other waste to create massive, stubborn clogs deep in your drain line.

Rocket Plumbing Tip: Pre-Holiday Inspection

Before the guests arrive, flush every toilet in your home a few times. If any toilet seems sluggish, or if you notice a bubbling sound in the shower drain when you flush the toilet, you may have a partial blockage already developing in the main sewer line. 

Addressing this common plumbing problem with a simple auger or professional snaking before your guests arrive is vital. Rocket Plumbing experts are happy to evaluate your system before the holidays. 

Also, consider putting up small, polite signs reminding guests not to flush anything but toilet paper.

3. Water Heater and Pipe Protection

During the cold winter months, homes require a lot more hot water. Plus, low temperatures make it more challenging to keep everything hot and running.

Manage Your Hot Water Demand

With everyone showering, washing dishes, and running appliances, your water heater will be working overtime. Some ways to prevent holiday plumbing problems include monitoring usage:

• Stagger Usage: Try to spread out hot water demand. Run the dishwasher late at night or early morning, not immediately after the big meal when others might want to shower.
• Check the Tank: If your water heater is struggling, consider flushing it quickly before the holidays. Sediment buildup reduces efficiency and heating capacity. A professional service can perform a full maintenance check to ensure your water heater doesn’t become one of your plumbing issues.

Frozen Pipe Prevention

While freezing is less common during Thanksgiving, late December holidays in the Chicago area are prime time for frozen pipes.

• Insulate Exposed Lines: Check any water lines in unheated areas, like garages, crawl spaces, or near outside walls. Apply foam pipe insulation to these vulnerable spots.
• Open Cabinets: During extreme cold snaps, open the cabinets under sinks on exterior walls to let warm air circulate around the plumbing pipes.
• Dripping Faucets: If temperatures plummet, letting a faucet on an exterior wall trickle slowly keeps water moving, preventing a solid freeze.

4. Knowing When to Call Rocket Plumbing

The goal of these holiday plumbing tips is to help you avoid needing a professional plumber entirely. But if the worst happens, such as a toilet overflowing onto the floor, a main drain backing up, or water coming up through the floor, you need to act fast.

Do not use chemical drain cleaners. They rarely work well on major clogs and often damage your pipes, creating a corrosive hazard for the plumber who eventually has to clear the blockage.

If you encounter a severe blockage or backup:

1. Turn off the water supply to the affected toilet or sink immediately.
2. Locate your main water shut-off valve and be prepared to turn off the water to the entire house if the leak is major.
3. Call Rocket Plumbing. We offer emergency service throughout the Chicago area because we know plumbing issues don’t take holidays off.

By following these simple holiday plumbing tips, you can focus on what truly matters: enjoying the company of your loved ones and the great food. 

Have a happy and clog-free holiday from your friends at Rocket Plumbing!