Have you ever imagined your home without a drainage system? Where would the dirty water go? Drains are a crucial part of your plumbing system that helps dispose of waste. Therefore, a clogged or leaking drain can have significant adverse effects on your home and health. The worst-case scenario is a sewage backflow as it can make your home inhabitable.
Let's see how clogged drains can affect your home and health.
Unpleasant Odors
Mostly, drains clog due to an accumulation of debris and dirt. This dirt can be anything from food particles, hair, soap, and grease. The rotting dirt combined with the stagnant dirty water emits an unpleasant smell that can cause anxiousness and discomfort to you and your family. If you don't resolve the clog quickly, the odor can easily accumulate in your home, making it inhabitable.
Deteriorating Health
If what you flash down your drains does not move, the drains become a breeding ground for bacteria. Since the water in clogged drains can flow back into your house, these bacteria will find their way into your home. Some bacteria found in clogged drains include Amphylobacter, salmonella, Escherichia coli (e. coli), Salmonella, and Staphylococcus aureus. All these bacteria can cause severe illness if they get into your body. For example, E. coli bacteria can cause fever, diarrhea, nausea, and abdominal pain.
Moreover, the stagnant water in clogged drains can become a breeding ground for mosquitos, increasing your risk of mosquito-borne diseases like Malaria, Zika Virus, West Nile Virus, and many more.
Mold Growth
If you have clogged drains at home, your bathroom becomes damp due to the slow flow of wastewater and backflows. Mildew and mold will grow fast in such an environment, producing allergens and irritants. Mold also grows when leaking water from clogged drains seeps into walls and the floor. Allergens from mold can cause allergic responses like red eyes, skin rash, sneezing, and runny nose.
Leaking Pipes
Since drains are not designed to hold water but to facilitate wastewater flow, any clogging can cause leaks at joints and seals. The backflows inside clogged drains can also place pipes under pressure and eventually cause them to burst.
Such bursts lead to expensive repairs for the plumbing system, plus the leaking water can wreak havoc on your walls and floor.
Structural Damage
If a drain in your home blocks, water can leak and flow to the ground through cracks or crawl spaces between walls. This water saturates the soil beneath and around your foundation, causing your home's foundation to subdue or move. This movement will form huge cracks on walls, affecting the structural integrity of your building. Structural damage is expensive to repair, plus you may need to vacate the house for your family's safety.
Poor Drainage
Clogged drains will automatically cause poor drainage. When dirt and debris accumulate in your drains, water from your sinks and bathrooms will have difficulty flowing to the main sewer. This difficulty causes the water to flow slower than usual or not to flow. In the worst-case scenario, the dirty water can start flowing back, resulting in additional hygiene and health challenges mentioned above.
While you may not completely prevent clogs from occurring in your drains, you can avoid most of the adverse effects above if you identify clogs while still in their early stages. However, since drains clogs are hard to locate without plumbing skills, you should occasionally hire a local plumbing company to inspect and clean your drains.
At PlumbRite, we have the experience, skills, and technology required to complete any plumbing job successfully. Contact us today to experience superior plumbing services at affordable prices.
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Omaha, NE
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