When it comes to home maintenance, some of the most common types of problems homeowners face are issues with their plumbing. What’s more, the reason for these problems is almost always bad behavior on the side of the homeowner. In order to help you avoid emergencies that require an expensive visit from your plumber, we’ve put together this quick list of common plumbing problems that are easily avoided.

1. Overestimating Your Garbage Disposal – One of the most common problems experienced plumbers face are issues with homeowners using their garbage disposal as a garbage bin. One of the most common mistakes people make in this regard is peeling potatoes over the sink and expecting the peels to simply wash down the drain. When it comes to your garbage disposal, it is best to err on the side of caution: if you think something might cause a problem, it probably will.
2. Overburdening Your Water Fixtures – Hanging a metal rack from your showerhead might seem like a clever way to compensate for a lack of storage space in your shower, but this added weight can have some serious consequences for your shower. You can cause damage to your showerhead or even break it off entirely, which may put you in immediate need of a plumber. Considering that almost 13.7% of residential water waste is a direct result of leaks from plumbing fixtures, it might be time to reconsider how you treat your showerhead.
3. Shaving Over The Sink – It might be hard to imagine the damaged hair can cause. After all, it is so thin that it should wash down the drain no problem. Unfortunately, this sort of thinking has led to some very severe clogging in the past, as any experienced plumber will tell you. The hair will clump together when wet and can cause a huge headache as the obstruction grows.
4. Flushing Wet Wipes – Flushing wet wipes, even the ones marked as flushable, is not a good idea. Unlike toilet paper, the fibers in most wet wipes do not degrade fully when exposed to water. That means that you have fiber in your pipes that might snag and cause obstructions only a residential plumber can unclog.

When it comes to your home plumbing system, it is important to practice care. Otherwise, you might find yourself making an emergency call to your residential plumbing services to correct a problem that never needed to happen in the first place.

Remember: If you take care of your pipes, they will take care of you.