IBERIA PARISH — As Thanksgiving cooking ramps up across Acadiana, local plumbers say they’re preparing for what they jokingly call “Brown Friday” — the day after the holiday, when clogged drains and overworked plumbing systems lead to a surge in service calls.
Stephen Prudhomme, service manager with Pipes & Plugs LLC in New Iberia, said the Friday after Thanksgiving is consistently one of the busiest days of the year for plumbers. Many homeowners end up spending their Black Friday money not on electronics or appliances, but on emergency repairs.
“A lot of the issues with Thanksgiving and plumbing coincide with people putting too much down their drains,” Prudhomme said. “They’re cooking a lot more than normal. Things like turkey fat or ham fat get thrown down disposals, and fat turns into grease.”
He said the biggest misconception is what a garbage disposal is designed to do.
“It’s supposed to be used for small leftover particles on plates, not for dumping large portions,” he said. “Stay away from rice, noodles, potato peelings, eggshells, or celery. They don’t churn up — they turn into a paste, and it’s gonna completely block up the line.”
Prudhomme said grease is another major problem, especially when people run water while pouring it into the sink.
“People think they can go ahead and run water while they’re dumping grease down the line, and that’s a complete myth,” he said. “You shouldn’t dump grease down the line at all. Let it cool and dry, and throw it in the trash.”
When a clog happens, and a plumber can’t immediately respond, Prudhomme recommends homeowners stop using the sink and check under the cabinet for leaks.
“Make sure there’s nothing leaking, nothing going anywhere,” he said. “If you have a leak underneath, put a pan or towels under it so it doesn’t damage the cabinets.”
The problems don’t stop in the kitchen. With families hosting holiday guests, bathrooms take on more flushes, more showers, and more strain than usual.
“You have a lot of guests in the home. The toilet gets flushed a lot,” Prudhomme said. “Different things that shouldn’t get flushed get flushed with guests coming into the home. It should be left to what belongs in the toilet and toilet paper.”
He said hot water systems are also pushed harder than usual, with back-to-back showers quickly draining tanks.
Prudhomme said most holiday plumbing emergencies can be avoided with small changes: scraping plates into the trash, keeping grease out of the sink, spacing out showers and tossing anything questionable into the garbage instead of the toilet.
“These simple things really do prevent a lot of problems before they start,” he said.
