Brown Friday: Why The Busiest Plumbing Day Of The Year Is About More Than Just Flushes

In recent years, Black Friday has become synonymous with Thanksgiving, as the day where Americans shop for the year’s best deals – but did you know that day has another nickname?

Sure, it might not be as well known as its shopping counterpart but, throughout the plumbing industry, the Friday after Turkey Day is typically referred to as Brown Friday. It earned that name because it’s actually the busiest plumbing day of the year, despite the fact that many scrutinize the validity of the significant uptick, believing it’s really just a myth. On average, plumbers see a 50 percent increase in calls on Brown Friday – and 21 percent more over the four-day weekend.

Because everyone is eating massive amounts of food in celebration, up to 4,500 calories for one meal, it’s no surprise that brown was chosen as the color to represent this specific industry holiday but the real reason has to do with more than just a spike in the amount of toilet flushing!

Worry More About What Goes Down The Sink Drain

With so many people in your house during Thanksgiving and throughout the holiday season, your toilet is going to get a workout, seeing a significant increase in usage, but while all of those flushes could add up to a drain or sewer problem, it’s not typically the Brown Friday culprit. The majority of calls plumbers receive on that Friday are related to problems found in the kitchen.

Creating such an elaborate feast also leads to a lot of waste, especially grease. When it comes to Brown Friday, grease is the biggest offender! It might seem like a good idea to dump it down the drain, after all it’s a liquid and should flow through your pipes with relative ease, but when warm grease hits a cold pipe, it solidifies and can stick to the walls of the pipe. Then, over time, all of that grease builds up and creates a blockage, stopping any wastewater flowing in its path.

The second biggest offender is food scraps, specifically things like potato peels, bones and eggshells. When making mashed potatoes, you should never put potato peels into your garbage disposal, because it can build up and congeal – and no amount of tap water will send it on its way. Even if you have a heavy duty garbage disposal, it’s not intended to be a dumpster. Don’t just throw anything down there. Things like turkey bones can not only jam up your garbage disposal but can also get stuck in your line, even if they’ve been chopped into smaller pieces. And then there’s egg shells. Desserts and other dishes require eggs and while the shells are brittle and seem like they’d go down drains without a problem, they have a membrane that causes them to stick together inside of your pipe and it’s tough enough to help form a blockage.

Ways To Can Keep Black Friday From Turning Into Brown Friday

If you remain vigilant with your kitchen drains during Thanksgiving, you can enjoy the rest of your weekend worry-free. Here’s a few tips for keeping your kitchen drain flowing and garbage disposal running smoothly, not just during the holidays but over the course of the new year:

• Never pour fats, cooking oil and any other grease down the kitchen sink. Instead, pour it directly into a heat-safe container, something like a soup can will work perfectly. Once it has cooled and, in the case of grease, solidified, you can just toss it into the garbage.
• Whenever you run the garbage disposal, make sure water is running from the faucet.
• Know what foods should and shouldn’t go into your garbage disposal. Avoid stringy, fibrous or starchy waste – if you wouldn’t feed it to a baby, don’t feed it to your disposal.
• Before cleaning and washing greasy pans in the sink, preemptively wipe off the grease.
• Avoid so-called “flushable” wipes and only use toilet paper when doing your business.

It doesn’t matter what day of the year it is, Zoom Drain is ready to get your wastewater lines flowing. If you’re facing a problem this Brown Friday, whether it’s your toilet, your sink or your garbage disposal, give us a call or schedule an appointment online at your nearest location.