Thanksgiving Plumbing Prep: Don't Let Your Guests See This

Nothing ruins Thanksgiving faster than a backed-up toilet while your in-laws are in the guest bathroom. Mid-November is when I start getting emergency calls from people hosting big dinners. Here's how to not be one of them.

Two Weeks Before

Test every toilet in your house. Flush them. Do they drain fast and completely? If one is sluggish, fix it now. A weak flush means there's a partial clog, and it'll become a full clog the moment you need it most.

Check water pressure in all your showers. Turn them all on at once. If the pressure drops significantly, you've got an issue. With multiple guests showering in the morning, low pressure will be obvious and annoying.

Run your dishwasher through a cleaning cycle. Pull out the filter, rinse it, check the spray arms for clogs. You're about to run it three times a day for four days straight—make sure it's ready.

Test your garbage disposal. Put some ice and citrus peels through it. If it's struggling, jamming, or smells bad, deal with it now. On Thanksgiving, you'll be putting more food waste through it than you do in a normal month.

One Week Before

Buy a good plunger for each bathroom. Not the toilet plunger—a real one. Put it somewhere accessible but not visible. Your guests will silently thank you.

Check under every sink for leaks. Extra people means extra water usage, which puts stress on connections that might be barely holding on.

Make sure you have a drain snake or know where to buy one. Not because you'll need it, but because if you do need it, you need it immediately.

If your water heater is over 10 years old, cross your fingers and maybe say a prayer. Consider bumping up the temperature slightly (not above 120°F) to handle increased demand. Just remember to turn it back down after.

The Day Before

Put a trash can in every bathroom with a sign that says "Please don't flush wipes or feminine products." I know it's not subtle, but it's better than calling a plumber on Thanksgiving.

Put a mesh drain cover in your kitchen sink. With all the food prep, more stuff will try to go down that drain than usual.

Clear out space under your kitchen sink. You'll be reaching under there a lot, and you don't want to fight through 15 plastic bags and old sponges every time.

Know where your main water shut-off is. Show your spouse or another adult. When something goes wrong, you need to stop the water fast.

Thanksgiving Day Rules

No grease down the drain. Not turkey grease, not bacon grease, not butter. Pour it into a can, let it solidify, throw it away. This is the number one cause of holiday plumbing disasters.

Scrape plates into the trash, not the disposal. Everything. The disposal is for tiny bits that make it past your scraping, not for half a plate of mashed potatoes.

Run cold water when using the disposal, and keep it running for 15 seconds after you turn off the disposal.

Spread out showers. Don't let four people shower back-to-back. Give your water heater time to recover between uses.

If a toilet clogs, don't flush it again. Plunge it. If it clogs twice, there's a bigger problem—stop using that toilet and use another one.

The Reality Check

The Friday after Thanksgiving is our busiest day of the year. Everyone's plumbing worked fine with two people, then eight people show up and suddenly nothing works. The problems were always there—you just exposed them.

So test everything now while you still have time to fix it. Your dinner will be better, your guests will be happier, and you won't be Googling "emergency plumber Charlotte" at 8 PM on Thursday.