I’ve heard multiple times that it’s not okay to allow any food to go down the drain even with a garbage disposal, I guess because solids shouldn’t go down the drain. But we put a shit ton of solids down the drain through the toilet and that seems to be fine. Does the toilet go to a different sewage pipe then the sink? Or does shit have different properties that make it dissolve better?
Food itself isn’t the issue - it’s the big chunks and oil/grease/fat. It’s better to pour it down the toilet, since the volume of water you flush it with is greater and the drain diameter there is larger as well (110 mm) compared to the pipes under your sink, which are usually 75 mm in diameter, sometimes even just 50 mm. Solids are also more likely to clog the P-trap under your kitchen sink.
Eventually, it all ends up in the same drain system anyway, so in that sense there’s no real difference.
Source: I’m a plumber.
Since anyone can say anything online I’m gonna need to see some butt crack for verification.
Careful what you ask for.
So if, say, someone poured bacon grease down the sink for several years until the sink stopped emptying, the solution would just be to pop the p trap off and clean it out? Seems simple enough. I always thought it would accumulate in the main line until that clogged.
As a separate plumber, I would remove the p-trap and snake it until I can get good flow, then install new p-trap.
From my experience plumbing and replacing drain lines, it’s the pipe from the kitchen to the main that backs up and clogs first. A kitchen drain will be 1 1/2” or 2” pipe, and a main will be 3”-4”. Problems come up when the drain isn’t supported properly, or the piping has a lot of warp with low and high spots. As it fills with grease it will begin to sag more in spots and exasperates any existing dips.
I recommend people use enzymatic drain cleaners, not acid cleaners, once or twice a year with hot water to break down any grease deposits.
Thanks for the advice! Good stuff!
No, grease does accumulate throughout the entire sewage system. It’s the solids that most easily clog the P-trap.
I flush food down the toilet occasionally. Works great in places without garbage disposals.
It’s mostly because of fatty foods. The fats/oils tend to solidify in the colder temperatures of sewage lines, ultimately causing clogged lines.
Our waste though has generally digested a large amount of that fat, whether it gets built up on your belly and ass or whether a lot of it gets expelled in the sweat.
Edit: Also, ideally, bacteria helps a lot with breaking down human waste and toilet paper, making the waste easier to flow through the pipes.
Just wanna point out that dietary fat is not the same as body fat. You aren’t made of walnuts, so walnut fat doesn’t go straight to your belly. Just about all fat gets digested and converted into sugar, put in your bloodstream, and then, if there’s excess, converted into body fat. To leave your body, it then gets converted back into sugar, gets used as energy, and then the CO2 goes back into your blood and exhaled. Sweating more doesn’t cause fat loss, just water weight loss, and people losing weight aren’t expelling it out by ass.
Solid waste volume has surprisingly little to do with the actual food you eat. It’s primarily dead bacteria, 50-70% by volume. While some food makes it through, it’s mostly the nondigestable things full of fiber. And capsaicin.
I’d also point out that the toilet pipe is significantly larger than than the kitchen pipe, and uses a multi-gallon, siphon-powered flush to help move it along. Your kitchen sink has none of these plumbing advantages. If you wanted to have a 3 inch kitchen drain and some kind of powered flush apparatus you might have a better time with food waste, but it’s still probably not a good idea for the reasons other people have mentioned. A normal kitchen sink drain configuration, even with the assistance of a disposal, is still quite ill-equipped to handle that kind and quantity of waste.
The type of food that’s the worst for pipes is fats, oils, and grease. You should never put any of these down a pipe because they can solidify and cause pipes to burst. Restaurants are required by law to have a grease trap for any grease that inadvertently goes down to minimize the damage.
The occasional vegetable scraps going down a residential garbage disposal will not pose a huge problem, but keep out any fats, oils, or grease.
Shit dissolves better. Food (generally) has more fats and oils that will stick and clog the pipes…
It’s the same pipe.
Combined with wet wipes, it transforms to Fatbergs. I really recommend the chapter about “Notable fatbergs”
Just don’t read about gutter oil afterward or you might immediately have some solids to throw at your plumbing.
Why are the notable ones all European/Oceanic?
Also hilarious that the only American one is also the only one that mentions sewage spilling out because of it.
I thought America was #1. Up your game, USA. Get those fatburgs going!
“The most notable Fatberg is Lord Eustace Fatberg IV. Lord Eustace had no hobbies as he was a non-sentient amalgam of human waste, wet wipes and fat lodged in a sewer.”
At 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Speaking for your shit. I’m sure these some fat grease shit out the sticking and evolving in some pipes.
