What a year we’ve had so far, 2020 has brought us a fair few surprises and up to now three unwanted guests in Jorge, Dennis and Ciara. All three have left a path of emotional, structural and financial damage behind them. The storms have also severely damaged drainage and sewer systems in London and the rest of the country.
Pardon the pun, but now the storm has settled it’s time to get our lives back in order and give our drains some much needed TLC.
When you ask people how they would keep their drains debris-free during the year the most common answer is… “Simple, I just remove visible leaves and debris.” Job done.
Remove what you can see
Ok, well let’s start with the obvious first step. Grab some protective gloves, ideally gardening ones and then head over to the drain or gutter in question. Begin removing every single piece of debris or leaves that have begun clogging up your drainage system. A good way to dispose of them is to pop them in your garden bin/bag or they are great to be introduced to a compost heap.
If you have a yard drain/grill within your front or rear garden at your property, this can be vulnerable to blockages after the triple troublemakers that have battered the country with severe rain and winds this year. The purpose of yard drain/grill is really simple, it’s designed to catch runoff water that comes from the streets to prevent excess flooding in residential areas. This links to the overall sewage system. Under no circumstances do you attempt to access ones that are outside of your property as this is the responsibility of your local water company.
Now, it’s a case of adopting a similar approach to how you removed the debris from your drainage system. You can get down and dirty and go straight in with your hands to remove the debris from your yard drain/grill or you can use a bucket if easily accessible. Removing what is visible will ease off and could potentially prevent blockages, so every step you make to remove what is visible will go a long way to prevent long-term damage.
Internal steps to take
Once you are comfortable and all external drain blockages have been taken care of, it’s time to head inside and flush out your pipework and drainage indoors. We’ve put together several articles on best practices to unblock your drains that you can refer to in more detail but today we’re only going to ask you to run some boiling hot water and drainage cleaner down your sinks within your property on this occasion. If you suddenly start getting standing water, then do refer to our DIY blockage advice.
Following the above steps two or three times a year should help prevent unwanted external blockages in your property. If you continue to have issues then please contact us on 07824 757572 / 0800 849 8099 or email service@happydrains.co.uk