While toilet paper companies are touting to you the benefits of choosing their brand, the one thing they aren’t telling you is how their brand might be the cause for plumbing repairs.

There are three ways in which toilet paper is doing your plumbing harm:

1. Pipes
When your plumbing pipes are first installed, the newness lets anything sail right through. But over time, the inside of your pipes begins to change. Oil and grease begins to congeal and adhere to the pipes, causing them to have rough edges and slight variations to the regular flow. Small particles begin to build up. And depending on the age of your plumbing, tiny cracks may allow landscaping to begin the search for water, and enter your pipes in the process. All of this causes tiny ridges for toilet paper to get stuck on, and continue building up the problem in your pipes at an accelerated pace.

2. Low Flow Toilets
There’s the good and the bad of low flow toilets. The good comes from saving water, which in our drought-ridden and water thirsty world is a good thing. The bad comes from lack of power. Less water means less water pressure to push waste down the pipes. If it doesn’t have the power to make it where its suppose to go, it can build up over time.

3. Flushable Wipes
A new product entered the market a few years ago, and is wrecking havoc across the Front Range. Flushable wipes say they are biodegradable, but study after study shows they aren’t. They take much more time to break down than standard toilet paper, and because of their thickness, they don’t move through your pipes as fluidly as toilet paper. An added problem is you have a low flow toilet too.

TIP: Here’s a quick way to see if you have the right toilet paper to avoid future plumbing problems. Take a sheet or two of toilet paper and drop them into your toilet. If a few minutes pass and they still look like sheets of toilet paper, they are too thick and are putting your plumbing at risk. Choose a lighter, thinner option; your plumber will thank you. 🙂