Thanksgiving and Houston Plumbing: Protecting Your Pipes During the Holidays

Plumbers across the country report that Thanksgiving generates more service calls than any other day of the year. The combination of large meals, multiple guests, and heavy use of kitchen and bathroom plumbing overwhelms even well-maintained systems. In Houston, adding a potential cold snap to the mix means November is prime time for plumbing emergencies.

The Kitchen Drain: Your Biggest Holiday Risk

Thanksgiving cooking sends an unusual volume of problematic materials down the kitchen drain. Here’s what never to put down the drain or garbage disposal:

• Cooking grease and fat — Solidifies in pipes and causes the most common holiday clogs
• Turkey skin, bones, or cartilage — Too fibrous for most disposals
• Starchy foods — Potato peels, stuffing, and pasta expand in water and stick to pipes
• Celery and fibrous vegetables — String wraps around disposal blades
• Coffee grounds — Accumulate and create dense blockages

Give Your Disposal a Pre-Holiday Tune-Up

Run your garbage disposal regularly before Thanksgiving with cold water and a few ice cubes to clean the blades. Use citrus peels (lemon or orange) to freshen the smell. If your disposal hums but doesn’t turn, it’s jammed — use the hex key on the bottom of the unit to manually rotate the impeller before calling a plumber.

Prepare Bathrooms for Extra Guests

Holiday gatherings stress bathroom plumbing too. Drain slow? Address it before guests arrive with a drain snake or enzyme cleaner (not caustic drain chemicals, which damage pipes). Place a waste bin in every bathroom with a clearly visible sign — guests often flush things that shouldn’t be flushed. Space out showers by at least 10 minutes to allow the water heater to recover.

Prepare for November Cold Snaps

Houston’s first cold snaps typically arrive in November. With the memories of Winter Storm Uri in mind, take 30 minutes to insulate exposed pipes in the attic and exterior walls before temperatures drop. Install foam faucet covers on outdoor hose bibs, and know where your main shutoff is located just in case.