Blocked drains are quite unpleasant and anyone who has experienced them would wish not to re-encounter the experience. They generate bad smells, they keep you from using your plumbing system as you would like to, and they pose a health hazard to your home. Worse, they present an emergency which you can do little to mitigate once it has occurred. Or do they? Here are some of the helpful things you can do before your emergency plumber arrives.

Keep your waste water discharge to a minimum

If your drains are indeed blocked, your waste water will not be flowing as well as it should. In dire cases, your waste water may not flow down your drain pipes at all. To avoid worsening the situation, the next best thing you can do is to limit how much waste water you flush down the drains at this time. For example, you can avoid taking a bath and opt for a quick shower or you can hold off on doing the laundry.

Find out if all your sinks and toilets are draining properly

Blocked drains are tricky. You may think that the external drain pipes are blocked only to discover later that it was just your kitchen drain that had a problem. To ascertain how extensive the problem is, inspect all the drains. If all the drains in the house are affected, that means the blockage emanates from the external drains. However, if it's only some of the drains that have an issue, that means that the problem is internal and your external drains might be okay.

Check if there is any backflow from the toilets or sinks

Another important thing to do is to check if any of your internal drains are experiencing any backflow. The toilets are especially affected by this. Backflow occurs if the blockage is external and of a dire nature. The reason why you should check for backflow is to take the necessary steps to clear anything nearby that might get soaked by the dirty water. You can use dry rags to help soak up some of the water for the time being. The goal here is to avoid a sanitation hazard in your house.

Once an emergency plumber like Trade-Edge arrives, they will inspect your premises and pinpoint where the source of the problem is. They can then use chemicals or drain rods for internal clogging or they can use water jetting and electric rods for external drain blocking. It will depend on what the cause of the blockage is, e.g., fats or grease, tree roots, foreign objects, etc.