Teaching your toddler toilet training can often be an exercise in frustration. However, if you have been using flushable toilet wipes during this process, your frustration levels are about to rise even more. It turns out that some flushable wipes are causing expensive repairs for both homeowners and local councils in the form of fatbergs. So, what exactly is a fatberg? And how does it affect your home?
What Is A Fatberg?
Just like the Titanic didn't see the iceberg until it was too late, the first sign you have a fatberg in your sewer line is when you investigate a blocked toilet that won't flush.
The term 'fatberg' relates to items found in the sewer system that has clumped together to form a solid mass. Items that can be found within a fatberg include sanitary products, flushable wipes and wet wipes. Because body fat also flushes down into the same system after your shower, all of the items can mush and congeal together to make one large sewer blockage.
What Is The Issue With Fatbergs?
The biggest problem with a fatberg is that once it begins to form, it will continue to grow with each new object flushed down the toilet. Eventually, the mass of the object becomes so large that it blocks the movement of waste through the pipes. The next thing you know, you have a blocked toilet, and that is only the beginning of your troubles.
One resident in Sydney, New South Wales was left with a repair bill of $16,000 after a fatberg did some serious damage to her sewer pipes. Not only did she need to pay for the fatberg to be removed, but she then had to pay for the replacement cost of pipes that were no longer usable after the fatberg was gone.
What Should You Do?
The first thing you should do if you have been using flushable wipes is to throw them away. There are plans afoot to make sure that only truly flushable wipes are labelled as such in the future. The next thing you should do is call your plumber. Do not wait for your toilet to become blocked. Instead, have your sewer lines inspected now so that any blockage can be removed before it causes irreparable damage.
Don't let a fatberg derail the sewer lines of your home. Instead, steer the future of your plumbing well away from that berg by proactively having it blown out of the water first!
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