Avoid 'Brown Friday:' Day After Thanksgiving Tips For RivCo Residents

LAKE ELSINORE, CA — When it comes time to dispose of your cooking oils and grease, the Eastern Municipal Water District wants to give you something to consider. There's a reason that plumbers refer to the day after Thanksgiving as "brown Friday."

A full house combined with grease and food residue clogging drains and pipes, creating a day-after-holiday disaster. But it doesn't have to be inevitable. Though some plumbing issues are impossible to avoid, it is how you wash your pots and pans and what you put down the disposal that can keep the "brown Friday" plumber call at bay, according to EMWD and Roto-Rooter professionals.

During Thanksgiving week, Riverside County homes are filling up with extended family and kids home from college, leading to an extra laundry load or ten, longer showers, more dishwasher cycles, and yes, more bathrooms in use.

"The extra strain on the plumbing system is like the proverbial last straw that breaks the camel's back," according to Roto-Rooter.com, the nationwide plumbing and water cleanup company. They estimate the four-day Thanksgiving holiday weekend sees a 21 percent increase in calls more than any other weekend throughout the year.

Paul Abrams, spokesman for Roto-Rooter, went into some gritty Thanksgiving day detail. The most significant issues on "brown Friday are kitchen sink clogs, jammed garbage disposals, main sewer clogs, and toilet clogs," he said. Some issues are unavoidable, but many can be controlled at home.

"Often, the case is that a house already has partially clogged drains that go unnoticed until holiday guests arrive and overwhelm the system," Abrams said. "Hectic houses full of people and frantic hosts quickly and easily lead to plumbing problems throughout the holiday season. Even more problematic is that virtually every traditional Thanksgiving dish is a drain-clogging culprit."

EMWD agreed, adding that maintaining a healthy sewer system will help keep everyone's costs low and keep the pipes flowing. They are urging customers to find alternate ways to toss Thanksgiving dinner leftovers.

The agency said that post-cooking grease and oils left behind on dishes and dinner plates could permanently damage dishwashers and sinks, causing sewage lines to rupture and leading to spills in the street that are expensive to repair.

As your guests arrive, give them some laughable yet important requests:

• If you're planning on providing laundry service, hand out the hampers. Give everyone a set time to run the laundry. Plan laundry during movies or early in the day, before showers or dishwashers are not running.
• Steamy showers are great, but suggest a 10-minute pause between guests, ensuring slow drains can fully function.
• Ask that they only flush toilet paper with the go, not wet wipes, feminine products, or baby wipes, even when they say it's okay on the packaging. Keep a lined trashcan in all bathrooms for everyone's benefit.
• Let your visitors know about pre-existing conditions. Tell them if you have a sink that is slow to drain, a faucet that could use an extra turn to halt the drips, a toilet that needs to be watched to ensure the flush or any other plumbing issues that would help keep them from getting embarrassed beforehand. Everyone will be happier in the long run.

For cooks, take special note of these time-honored Thanksgiving plumbing tips:

• Pour fats and cooking oils into cans and then toss. Wipe off grease from pots with paper towels and throw them away.
• Keep the starchy waste—mashed potatoes, carrots, celery, fruit, peelings—away from your garbage disposal. Here's a pro tip: put a paper towel over your sink to catch potato peels and wipe them out before you run water.
• Ensure the disposal is on and water is running before you put anything inside; Roto-Rooter suggests running it frequently. Don't wait until the disposal is full before running.
• Compost what you can of your food waste. Discard the rest of your food waste in the greens when possible.

The EMWD also asked customers not to put eggshells, coffee grounds, and non-organic materials into drains because they, too, can cause damage.

More information on proper disposal is available at www.emwd.org/SewerSmart.