Hours of hunting for the perfect recipes, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning all for about 20 minutes of eating. That is right, Thanksgiving is here, and we understand just how stressful this holiday can be! After all, there are so many things that can go wrong and while we can’t help you with the cooking, the cleaning, the cranky relatives or save you from your in-laws, we do have a couple tips to help prevent an unforeseen home emergency.
Watch Out for Fire Hazards
Your kitchen will likely be the star of the show this Thanksgiving, and increased kitchen usage does mean an increased risk of kitchen fires. YouTube is full of videos of unsuspecting people accidentally setting their stoves on fire. A kitchen fire is a lot easier to start than you may think but taking a few precautions can go a long way here.
- Firstly, never leave your kitchen unattended when cooking.
- Watch where you leave potholders, towels and other flammable items. Don’t leave these on or too close to your stove top.
- Frying your turkey this year? Well that sounds delicious but be sure to follow all of the safety instructions, and never use your turkey fryer indoors!
- Accidents can happen anytime, even when you’re being careful, so keep a kitchen rated fire extinguisher in your kitchen, and make sure the batteries in your smoke detectors are working.
Plumbing Overload
Did you know that the day after Thanksgiving is usually the busiest day of the year for plumbers? Added stress on your kitchen pipes, and extra visitors using your bathroom, can lead to some unpleasant surprises. Here’s what you can do to try to save yourself a plumbing related headache.
Most people would be surprised about what can’t go into a garage disposal. Your disposal is only meant to break up food bits that come off your dishes during washing. Larger items should never go down the drain, and instead be scooped into the trash.
Here is a list of items you should avoid putting down your drain this Thanksgiving:
- Turkey bones (or any bones)
- Egg shells
- Coffee grounds
- Pumpkin seeds
- Stringy foods like celery or green beans
- Corn husks
- Grease and cooking oil
Your bathroom pipes pose a whole other list of concerns. Like your kitchen sink, your toilet is only really designed to handle one specific job. Flushing other items down your toilet will lead to a mess you don’t want to deal with. If you want to do everything you can to avoid a clog, don’t flushing these items.
- Flushable wipes, despite the name these are absolutely not flushable and large quantities of these being flushed may backfire. If you have flushable wipes in your home, you may want to hide them from your guests.
- Kleenex and other facial tissues
- Cotton balls
- Q-Tips
- Paper towels
Basically, just stick to good old-fashioned toilet paper. Also, you might want to keep an eye out on small children as they do enjoy flushing anything, they can get a hold of.
If you do wake up Friday morning with a major plumbing 911, no worries. Our plumbing team is standing by to get things flowing again. Simply give us a call at (314) 720-3580!
