3 Ways to Keep Your Outdoor Drain From Clogging
We often think of water flooding our homes and buildings. Yet it’s also important to consider how flooding in your yard can affect you. If you live in a neighborhood or in the city, your yard most likely has a drain somewhere outside.
Your outdoor yard drain helps to protect your land and building from flooding. This drain gathers standing water and transports it to a drainage area, like the street or a storm drain. It’s a crucial method for protecting your building from flooding, especially if you live on flat land.
In the spring and fall, these drains can become clogged with various debris, like leaves, sticks, mud, and many more. When that happens, April showers soon turn into dangerous flooding. That’s why it’s important to keep your outdoor drain clean and regularly check for clogs. Luckily, there are some easily accessible ways to do so.
What Happens When Your Outdoor Drain Clogs?
A clogged outdoor drain is similar to a clogged drain or pipe inside your home.
When debris gathers in the drain, the water has trouble passing through to the termination area. Over time, and especially in heavy storms, this water begins to overfill the drain. Since it has nowhere to go, it floods your yard.
This intense flooding can wreak havoc on your garden or yard ornaments. It can also affect any loose object left in your yard, sweeping them away or covering them in dirt and mud.
Outdoor drain flooding doesn’t just affect your lawn. It can also damage your home. You could experience flooding in your home, or mold could begin to grow in your basement. Your home’s foundation can even begin to corrode, leading to expensive repair costs.
Your outdoor drain affects more than just the outside of your home. That’s why it’s important to keep it from clogging and flooding your property.
How to Unclog Your Outdoor Drain
During the fall and spring seasons, it’s easy for loose leaves and petals to gather around and in your outdoor water drain. In most cases, unclogging your drain can be as easy as clearing the entrance.
Be sure to remove any leaves, sticks, mud or other debris that blocks the drain grate. You should remove the grate as well and thoroughly clean the entrance. It’s also a good idea to clean around the termination area.
Most of the time this simple step can keep your yard from flooding. But if you keep experiencing drain overflow, there might be something in the drainpipe itself.
In this case, you have a few options:
- Flush out the debris with a hose: Leave the hose by the entrance and run the water until the loose debris leaves the pipe. This is also a good way to test if there’s any blockage in general.
- Use a drain snake: This tool is designed to fit into long pipes and break up any debris that’s blocking your path. The drain snake can break up any dirt or leaves that are stuck to the inside of the pipe.
- Hydro-jet your pipes: When the hose doesn’t work, you can always add some pressure. By using a hydro jet to essentially pressure wash your pipes, you have a better chance of catching any particularly difficult debris.
One option you should never consider is using cleaning chemicals to break down the debris. Just like with the pipes in your kitchen and bathroom, these cleaning products eat away at them. Over a period of time, you could be forced to repair serious problems with your broken pipes.
How to Prevent Your Outdoor Drain From Clogging
Just as it’s usually simple to unclog your outdoor drain, it’s not complicated to keep your drain from clogging.
As part of your autumn and spring yard work, make sure to rake any leaves near your drain. By regularly doing this, you can keep as many leaves, sticks, petals and mud away from your drainage pipes.
You should also regularly clean your house gutters. By removing debris from them, you keep overflowing water from flooding the yard and moving debris to your drain.
What if The Pipe is Still Clogged?
There are rare cases where nothing seems to work. Every time you run water through the drain, it comes right back up. This can suggest a larger issue that you can’t solve on your own.
Most of the time, the pipe has been broken. This can happen when a nearby tree grows a root that breaks through the pipe. Your pipe can also break over time thanks to deterioration.
If you can’t unclog your outdoor drain, then you need professional help. For any homeowners in Richmond, VA, you need Mike Wilson Plumbing. Our experienced team can pinpoint the exact problem and fix it to the best of our abilities.
Contact us to schedule a consultation and keep your outdoor drain from overflowing.
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