Latest news with #plumber
The Sun
4 days ago
- General
- The Sun
How to use a 10p cable tie to totally clear out your plug holes WITHOUT any chemicals or touching the gross hair gunk
BLOCKED drains are a homeowner's worst nightmare, but for the most part they're unavoidable. A kitchen sink, for example, has to deal with large amounts of grease and food on a daily basis. 2 Meanwhile, when it comes to a bathroom drain, it has to handle soap suds, grime and hair whenever you shower or take a relaxing bath. But while there are heaps of different products on the market to tackle this problem, sometimes they tend to be pricey - or not work at all. Luckily, one TikToker has shared a nifty 10p solution, which she was allegedly taught by a plumber. The secret remedy? Nothing but a basic cable tie that you can snap up from Screwfix for just 99p for a 100-pack. According to the TikTok user and mum Tsagana, all you need to do is simply grab a pair of scissors and make a few diagonal cuts - these will act like tiny hooks. Once ready, she demonstrated in the now-viral video, hop into the shower or your bathtub and slide the flat tie down the drain. Go in as deep as possible and give the plastic tie a good wiggle to pick up as much gunk as possible. Tsagana, who posts under the username @ tsagana24, then proceeded to pull the tie out - leaving viewers horrified by the chunks of hair and gunk that came out with it. If needed, repeat the process for an extra clean drain. ''Why didn't I know about this genius hack earlier?'' the mother wrote in the caption. I was gutted when scrubbing didn't get my 'stained' blender clean, then remembered a £3.25 spray I had in the cupboard 'Your plumber did not gate keep!' Since being uploaded online, the clip has taken the internet by storm, winning the mum a staggering 8.7million vires. It also has an astronomical 280k likes, 84k shares, with close to 2,000 viewers flooding to comments. The household items you're not cleaning often enough IF you want to ensure your home is squeaky clean, you'll need to listen up. Below are the household items you're forgetting to clean, and how to get them sparkling... Remote Controls: Wipe with a disinfectant cloth. Use a cotton bud for crevices. Light Switches: Wipe with a disinfectant wipe. Use a mild soap solution for tough stains. Door Handles: Clean with an antibacterial spray. Wipe down regularly. Underneath and Behind Appliances: Vacuum or sweep regularly. Mop with a suitable cleaner. Shower Curtains and Liners: Wash in the washing machine. Use a bleach solution for stubborn mildew. Kitchen Sponges and Dishcloths: Microwave damp sponges for one minute. Wash dishcloths in the washing machine. Computer Keyboards and Mice: Use compressed air to remove debris. Wipe with a disinfectant wipe. One said: ''Unscrew the little top hat looking thing! It makes doing this so much easier.'' ''Your plumber did not gate keep!'' another chimed in. However, whilst many were keen to test this hack for themselves. not everyone has the best experience. ''tried it, it broke, now there's plastic stuck deep inside my drain and it's more blocked than before,'' one cleaning fan cried. A fourth chimed in with another nifty solution, writing: ''But, there is this thing called, drain snake. Readily available.
CNET
5 days ago
- General
- CNET
The Shocking Truth About Chemical Drain Cleaners, According to a Plumber
A clogged shower is the pits, especially when you're trying to get clean and find yourself knee-deep in filthy water. You might be tempted to grab a bottle of chemical goo promising "instant clog annihilation," but a plumber we spoke to said to hold your fire. You might be throwing out the pipes with the bathwater, so to speak. To find the best and safest way to send those mystery clogs packing, we called on Erik Gitli, a New York-licensed master plumber and owner of Aladdin Plumbing Corp (yes, he grants plumbing wishes -- but only the reasonable ones). "We're not fans of putting chemicals down the drain," Gitli says. "They may say they're safe, but they've still got enzymes and other scary stuff that can chew away at your pipes." And if that wasn't enough to scare you straight, Gitli adds that chemical clog-busters can be dangerous for plumbers who eventually have to get in there and deal with the mess -- chemicals and all. "Most of the time, they don't even break through the really nasty clogs," he says. Translation: you're pouring money (and possibly your functional pipes) down the drain. What is the best way to unclog a shower drain? Snaking If it is a hairball that is clogging your drain, there is one relatively simple way to try and clear it. The master plumber we spoke to suggests a drain snake over harsh chemicals. Lowe's "Snaking is the way that we clean a good amount of the blockages in showers most of the time, because a lot of the time it is clumped up hair that's not going to get taken out any other way," Gitli says. You can purchase a simple drain snake for as little as $3 or bag a three-pack of plastic snakes for less than $15 A hand-crank snake, which Gitli recommends for homeowners costs around $20. However, if you use these, there is one thing to keep in mind, especially if you live in an apartment building. "In bigger buildings, there are back-to-back bathrooms that could cause a problem if you start snaking," Gitli warns. "You could put a snake down into your tub drain, and it could literally go over into the other apartment and pop up right out of their tub." So, if you do use a snake, stay aware of how far you are putting the snake into the drain to avoid any issues. Plunging Plunging the shower drain is another chemical-free way to get things option for a clogged drain is to try and plunge it. "You're not going to pull anything out when you plunge it, so you could temporarily clear the stoppage if you loosen whatever's in there and it just moves down the line a little bit, but then could eventually clog up again," Gitli says. "So depending on what's clogging it, plunging could help, but it might be only a temporary solution." If snaking the drain and plunging it still doesn't seem to do the trick, your best bet is to contact a local plumber who can discover what is clogging the drain and use stronger tools to get the job done if needed. Read more: This Is Why You Should Never, Ever Pour Grease Down the Drain How to prevent a clogged shower drain A hair catcher will do wonders in keeping your shower drain free of clogs. shingopix/Getty Images Because shower drains have a tendency to get hair build-up, the best thing to use is a hair catcher, Gitli says. There are numerous affordable options to pick from online depending on what you prefer and what size drain you have, and coming from personal experience, this simple solution can save you a lot of time and lower-back pain.
New York Times
7 days ago
- Health
- New York Times
The Unparalleled Daily Miracle of Tap Water
I used to have no problem with tap water. I grew up in Cincinnati with parents who, at dinner, filled a pitcher straight from our kitchen sink. In St. Louis during college, I subsisted on campus water fountains. I later moved to New York, which boasts 'the Champagne of tap water' and claims it to be the secret ingredient in its bagels. During a two-year stint in Montana, I went on long hikes and sipped stream water, shockingly cold and straight from the glaciers, but other than that, I drank from the tap. And then I landed in Los Angeles, where everyone I met used a filter. My office had water delivered in five-gallon jugs. I was told this was because of sediment in the tap water. A few months in, I called a plumber because the gush from my kitchen sink had dwindled to a drip, and he said there was a buildup blocking the water's path. I asked him directly: Was the water safe to drink? He shrugged. He'd be cautious, he said: No one really knew what was in those pipes. I freaked out. What if I'd been poisoning myself? What irrevocable damage had I done to my body or mind? Everyone in L.A. — at friends' homes, at the grocery store, in public parks — seemed to fear the tap water. So I bought my first Brita filter. This was not the only anxiety I developed. Thanks to warnings from seemingly everyone around me in the city, I began to worry about things I never before considered threatening, like dust (could cause cancer), anything with seeds (could cause cancer) or certain planetary configurations (responsible for all other misfortunes). If I put my purse on the floor, or oriented my bed the wrong way, it was endangering my energy! Maybe I'd been lulled into a false sense of security about everyday life. One Tuesday this January, I awoke to a terrible headache and ash outside my door. The wind grew so strong that doors slammed open and branches broke off trees. Fires were decimating the Pacific Palisades to the west and Altadena to the east. No one knew how toxic all the smoke was or when the fires would stop. And then, the Department of Water and Power accidentally sent out a bulletin telling residents in my area not to drink the tap water without boiling it first. Officials retracted the message, which was supposed to be for other neighborhoods, but I became more paranoid than ever. I bought bottled water. Then I started worrying about microplastics. But I didn't like this version of myself — a person who distrusts her own environment. In those weeks that the fires ravaged L.A., while I watched powerlessly as tens of thousands of homes were wrecked by untamable forces, I started to rethink my received notions around tap water. Part of the local concern over water does feel justified: Lead was found in the water in the city's Watts neighborhood a year ago, and there have been severe cases of unclean water causing public-health crises elsewhere, as in Flint, Mich., in the 2010s. But these cases are rare. And, I realized, fixating on the risks of anything too much can put you in an isolationist mentality. As I huddled in my hermetically sealed apartment while fires wreaked desolation outside, I suddenly worried less about what was coming out of my faucet and more about my tenuous connections to the outside world. I used to be a person who dove right into their physical surroundings with enthusiasm and curiosity; why had I been so quick to give that up? So after the fires were contained, I returned to drinking tap water. It became an act of rebellion against a city that had scared and confused me, a city in which I never quite fit in, anyway. Understanding my own cultural discomfort this whole time made me feel more relaxed. Tap water is great. It's incredible that we've worked out a system in which anyone with a faucet can get it. It is cheap and plentiful, and it connects you to the ecosystem around you — the shared resource pulling you into contact with all the other plant and animal life around. It might taste better in some places than in others, but whenever you drink it, you are reckoning with some sense of home. Having spent two years in a mild hysteria over tap water, I no longer have my old, unthinking faith in it. Sometimes I miss that naïveté. But in its place, I have something better. The whole ordeal encouraged me to ask questions and engage others in dialogue instead of trafficking in superstition — to make up my own mind. Instead of simply relying on the warnings of others, I did my own research, learning that tap water is subject to more regulation than bottled water; the most recent survey of L.A. tap water showed it to be compliant with the Environmental Protection Agency's measures. (Although this study was conducted before the fires, so it doesn't account for the weakened quality of water in burn zones.) Drinking tap water feels to me like a kind of civic duty too, because it means consuming the public resource that an ostensibly well-intentioned government system — and not a for-profit bottled-water company's marketing firm — has worked hard to offer its citizens. I don't judge anyone who wants to use a filter or get their water from other sources, but I maintain that tap water is unrivaled in its price, abundance and evocation of community. Recently, I moved out of Los Angeles and landed in New Mexico. Upon my arrival, I filled up a glass straight from the sink and relished my first big sip.
