Among the many problems you may run into with the drains in your house—such as massive clogs, broken pipes, a backed-up sewer line—the appearance of small flies circling around the drain doesn’t seem major. Of course, nobody wants to have flies inside their house, and the sight of insect swarming around drains is unpleasant. If you have drain flies around your kitchen or bathroom drains, you absolutely want something to be done about it, especially since these drain flies can warn of a bigger problem developing in the plumbing.
Why You’ve Got Drain Flies
Common drain flies aren’t harmful to people. They’re only about an 1/8 of an inch long, and they breed inside of sewer lines, septic tanks, as well as just about any spot they can find water.
If you have drain flies hovering around a particular drain, it usually means there is some build-up of organic material in the drain that’s allowed the flies to lay their eggs. This is why just spraying insecticide around the drain won’t do much. (You don’t want to spray these toxic chemicals near an area where you prepare food anyway.) You have to get at the source of the flies.
Basic Ways to Remove Drain Flies
The first thing we recommend you do is to check around the surface of the drain. Take a knife and scrape around the edges of the drain to see if there’s sludge around it. Dispose of the sludge in the trash and remove it right away, since it may contain larva and eggs. There may still be problems down farther in the drain, however.
Don’t use drain cleaner at this point! We know this is tempting because these acidic chemicals will wipe out organics down in the drain. But drain cleaners are harmful to the piping and still leave behind a residue in the pipes, which will soon allow the drain flies to come back. It’s more effective to pour a pot of boiling water down the drain twice a day for a week.
There are a few home remedies you can find online for how to attract and trap drain flies. This is good for taking care of the surface issue—the presence of the flies—but it won’t address the source.
The Full Drain Cleaning
If you want to take care of drain flies long-term, rather than using a short-term solution such as the ones above, we recommend you call a professional plumber in Covington, KY for drain cleaning. Drain cleaning uses powerful scouring tools to completely remove all debris from along the interior of drain and sewer lines. Once professionals have finished drain cleaning, you’ll not only have the drain flies kept away for a long time, you’ll have healthier plumbing and rarely run into clogging.
We also need to mention that drain flies may point toward bigger problems in your sewer line. Calling a plumber to look into the drainage system can help catch trouble like a clogged or broken sewer line or blocked drain vents. The sooner you have these problems fixed, the less likely you’ll have a major plumbing disaster in your home.
Ken Neyer Plumbing, Inc. serves Greater Cincinnati and the surrounding Tri-State area. Schedule top-quality plumbing with our team.