Your kitchen sink is the workhouse of your home. It holds hot pans when there is no room left in the stove. It gets filled with ice and cools down beverages during a party. It is loyal and dependable. It is time to start treating it right. Contrary to popular belief, you cannot dump anything and everything down your kitchen sink without doing harm to your drain and plumbing lines. 

1. Don't Dump Grease.

Just like your arteries, grease can solidify and build up on pipes. Over time, the layers of grease can become so thick that water and other waste cannot get through, causing your sink to clog. Use an old-school coffee can to collect grease instead, just like your grandma always did.

2. Don't Grind Lettuce.

Fruit and vegetable scraps and peels should not be placed in your garbage disposal. They can not only clog the disposal, but potentially break the blades. Seemingly innocuous items, like lettuce leaves and potato peels, are actually the worst. 

3. Don't Cram Everything in at Once.

If dinner was a bomb and you can't wait to dump the contents of that casserole down the drain, take your time. Do not cram it all in at once. Feed small portions to your disposal and let it grind it up completely before putting another portion down. 

4. Don't Use Hot Water.

Hot water keeps anything oily or greasy in a liquid form, but it will only clog up further down the plumbing line. Use cold water, which will solidify anything oily or greasy, and then run the garbage disposal to break up the pieces. 

5. Don't Use Drain Cleaners.

Over-the-counter drain cleaners promise to break up clogs, but the harsh chemicals may be doing much more. Not only are they dangerous to have in your home with small children around, they can also damage your pipes. If you have PVC pipes, they can build up on the pipes and cause a chemical reaction when you dump another, different chemical down the very same pipe. If you have copper pipes, the harsh chemicals can actually corrode the pipes, which is an extremely expensive repair to make. 

Taking care of your kitchen sink means taking your time. Scraping dishes into the trash can instead of forcing everything down the disposal and realizing that just because an item says it is disposable doesn't mean that it needs to go down your drain will help prevent harm to your plumbing. For more information, contact a professional like Rapid Plumbing Inc.