The day after Thanksgiving is the busiest day of the year for plumbers.
For many of us, the day after Thanksgiving is primarily known as Black Friday — the kick-start to the winter holiday shopping season. But for workers in one industry, it goes by a slightly different moniker: Brown Friday. The nickname comes from the high number of service calls plumbers receive the day after a holiday that strains people's waistbands and kitchen sinks. Many plumbers say that Friday following Thanksgiving is twice as busy as any other day of the year.
While Brown Friday gets its unappealing name from the sewage byproducts workers are often hired to handle, many plumbers report that service calls for bathroom fixes aren’t as common on that day. Instead, kitchen sinks, garbage disposals, and drains are the top offenders (though plumbers acknowledge that having more guests does put additional pressure on a home’s wastewater system). Most post-Thanksgiving plumbing issues stem from two culprits: grease and potato peels. Hot grease washed down sink drains eventually cools and solidifies, leading to buildup that can plug pipes. And when a massive heap of starchy potato peels makes its way down a partially clogged pipe, the grease and peels can congeal to create a kitchen nightmare. Fortunately, experts say there’s an easy way to prevent a Thanksgiving catastrophe: Toss meats, bones, and stringy or dense foods like those potato peels into the trash can instead of down the sink.
The first garbage disposal — the InSinkErator — was patented in 1935, but it was decades before the scrap-busting appliances were officially permitted in the nation’s largest city. While New Yorkers were initially free to use kitchen garbage disposals, the city reversed course in the 1970s over concerns that food scraps would overload the city’s then-aging sewer system. The ban, however, didn’t last. In the mid-1990s, New York City sanitation officials gave out 200 grinders as part of a study to evaluate the impact of garbage disposal use, and by 1997 the ban was repealed entirely. Still, more than 25 years later, it’s a rarity to find a New York City apartment that has an under-sink compactor. That’s because many of the city’s apartment buildings were constructed in the early 20th century and still use original plumbing, which landlords worry could clog or break down due to sludgy food particles.
