Keeping Your Septic System Healthy: A Guide to What You Can and Can't Flush

At Urgent Services, LLC, we understand that maintaining a healthy septic system is crucial to ensuring the smooth running of your household or establishment. Many people don't appreciate the intricacies of septic care, neglecting crucial activities such as routine septic cleaning and correct waste disposal. This leads to unpleasant consequences and expensive repair bills. As your trusted local septic service provider, we want to help you avoid this.

One key way to safeguard your septic system's health is by being aware of what you can and can't flush into your system. Improper waste can burden your tank, hindering its operations, and leading to significant issues down the line.

What You Can Flush

1. Human Waste and Toilet Paper

Standard toilet use, including human waste and toilet paper, should be the only things going into your septic system through your toilet. Toilet paper is designed to break down once it enters the septic system, which means it won't block your pipes or interfere with the bacterial balance in the tank.

What You Can't Flush

1. Non-Biodegradable Materials

Non-biodegradable materials like diapers, sanitary products, wipes (even those labeled as 'flushable'), dental floss, and cat litter should never be flushed down your toilet. These items do not break down in the septic system and result in clogs and backups.

2. Chemicals and Toxins

Harsh chemicals, pesticides, paints, oils, and medications can disrupt the natural bacterial balance in your septic tank, hindering the breakdown of waste. They can also tarnish the quality of the groundwater if they seep through the septic system.

3. Food Waste

Food waste, especially fats, oils, and grease, is one of the most damaging substances for septic systems. While it may seem harmless to flush leftover cooking oil or grease down the toilet, these substances accumulate in your tank, resulting in unpleasant odors, potential backups, and expensive septic tank cleaning.

4. Solid Items

Solid items like cigarette butts, coffee grounds, paper towels, and small toys can clog your pipes and fill your septic tank, leaving less room for wastewater and speeding up the need for septic pumping services.

Why Is It Important to Monitor What You Flush?

Ignoring the do's and don'ts of what to flush down your toilet could lead to major issues such as:

- A full or backed-up septic system that requires emergency septic service

- Damage to your septic system, leading to costly repairs or replacement

- Environmental harm due to the release of untreated sewage into nearby soil and water bodies

Luckily, most of these issues can be avoided by following proper septic usage and maintenance procedures and scheduling timely septic system inspections.

Septic System Maintenance

Regular septic system maintenance is crucial to its longevity and functionality. At Urgent Services, LLC, we provide comprehensive septic system maintenance services to help you avoid costly repairs and replacements and keep your septic system running optimally.

Our simple, transparent, and cost-effective maintenance procedures include septic tank cleaning, septic system inspections, and septic pumping services, ensuring your septic system remains healthy and efficient.

We also provide specialized grease trap cleaning for commercial establishments such as restaurants and cafes that often deal with significant amounts of fats, oils, and grease.

Summing Up

Understanding what can and cannot be flushed down your toilet is an integral part of maintaining a healthy septic system. At Urgent Services, LLC, we believe in empowering our clients with the knowledge to help them maintain their septic tanks effectively, thereby prolonging their lifespan and saving them costly emergency repair bills.

Are you due for a septic system inspection or maintenance? Not sure about the current state of your septic system? No worries - Urgent Services, LLC is here to help. We offer comprehensive septic services to help protect your property, your wallet, and our environment.

Contact us today to schedule a septic system inspection or to learn more about how we can assist you in keeping your septic system healthy.