What are Plumbing Traps?

Where does my sewage go?

When your plumbing is in use, there are a lot of different gasses and objects that are being flushed down the drain. The drain leads to the complex series of tubes that is your plumbing and sewage. In some cases, these smells and waste can push their way back through the sewers and into your home. In the olden days this was the reason why plungers were so common, however, in today’s age, we have plumbing traps for that.

What are Plumbing Traps?

Plumbing traps are a very simple system, but extremely effective. The plumbing trap is a curvature in the piping system. When things are going down the drain, they will shoot through the curved bottom, back up a small rise and then shoot out to continue into the sewage.

The trap works in a few important ways. Firstly, by using positive air pressure and aerodynamics, waste can flow freely through the tube base. While it can move down at a fast enough speed to be propelled over the gap and into the narrow tube, it is not able to go the other way. The air flow receives its power because of the quick drop and fast redirection. If the waste were to back up, it would go through a slow drop and a long redirection. This doesn’t allow the waste to return to where it came but rather sit in the bottom curve.

While storms will overhaul drains and push water back into the system, it cannot push the water strong enough to make its way back into your system. However, the common problem is that waste and debris will settle at the bottom of the trap and then impede wastes exit from the pipe henceforth. Luckily, there is a catch for that. Most plumbing traps come with an opening at the bottom that you can let out waste easily so that the tract can be cleared.

Contact All Hours Emergency Plumber Day or Night

When it comes to plumbing services, we recognize that work may be required at any time of the day or night. If you have a plumbing issue affecting operations or the health and safety of your employees, customers or visitors, you’ll want to take care of the problem immediately.

For details on our commercial and business plumbing services or to schedule a service call, please contact the team at All Hours Emergency Plumber today.

Categorised in: Plumbing Tips

This post was written by allhours