Clean Water Works
CLEVELAND, OHIO: From the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, an in-depth and fun conversation led by Donna Friedman and Mike Uva on any and all topics related to clean water, wastewater treatment, stormwater management, and the people, projects, and programs serving Lake Erie and our local waterways and communities.
Clean Water Works
Protect your Pipes! Plumbing Tips with Joe Boziak
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Pouring grease down the kitchen sink seems harmless until the day the drain slows to a crawl. Joe Boziak, a master plumber with decades in the trade, handles all of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District’s plumbing needs. We discuss fats, oils, and greases (FOG), how they can mess up your pipes, and why the old “just run hot water” advice can make the buildup worse.
Home-plumbing maintenance consists of low-cost moves like saving cooking grease in a can, feeding a garbage disposal slowly with cold water running, and a quick test for toilet leaks. If you care about avoiding clogs—and keeping our sewer shared infrastructure running smooth, this episode is a must listen!
Welcome And Meet The Plumber
Mike UvaWelcome. This is Clean Waterworks, a podcast.
Donna FriedmanAbout clean water here at the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District.
Mike UvaI'm Mike Uva.
Donna FriedmanAnd I'm Donna Friedman. We are your hosts here at Clean Water Works.
Mike Uva3900 Euclid Avenue, headquarters of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District. And we have as a guest today, Joe Bozak.
SPEAKER_02That's correct, yes.
Mike UvaJoe Bozia is a master plumber for 38 years. For 38 years, correct. He is part of our building maintenance team. Today we are talking about fats, oils, and greases and how they contribute to plumbing problems, both in your home, your business, and in the greater sewer system.
Why Grease Clogs Pipes
Donna FriedmanAnd Joe, you're on our building maintenance team?
SPEAKER_02That's correct. I've been here for about 26 years.
Donna FriedmanAnd are you at a specific building or are you all over?
SPEAKER_02No, I am the only plumber in the sewer district, believe it or not. And I travel three plants and all our outlying areas. Aaron Powell What did you do before you came to the sewer district? I did service calls for a uh local company for 16 years at plumbing.
Mike UvaCan you talk about some of the most common issues with uh plumbing?
SPEAKER_02Well, we're gonna talk about uh oils and fats in grease. Uh kitchen sink lines are probably one of the biggest ones. Uh there's an old myth/slash urban legend out there. When you dump grease down your sink, you're supposed to run hot water. That's not true. It's bad. It's very bad. It's it's almost like the human body. It'll go, but as it goes with the hot water, it just continues to line the pipe. And it's like a human artery. Eventually, it'll stop. Uh, your lines, most of your lines, especially in the Cleveland area, most of them are inch and a half. They'll drop into a two-inch bend in the floor, and then usually you end up in a four-inch line. And that grease could actually travel all the way out to the main. Wow. Especially with hot water. If you run the cold water, which I don't I don't suggest putting grease down the line at all. But if you're gonna run cold water, it's almost like waste, it'll ball up and kind of roll through the system. Cleveland has what they call combined sewers. A lot of the older homes have a trap in the front yard. Reason being, if it's not trapped, your downs downspouts will stink like sewage.
Mike UvaThe traps keep odors from passing through.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, what it does is traps because, like I said, your your sanitary and your storm sewer in a lot of the areas at Cleveland is one. You have one sewer leaving the house. And of course, uh, if it ties into a sanitary or combined sewer, you can get a lot of odors coming from like the uh areas around the downspouts, you know, down low. So they put uh traps on them. And over the years, they get blocked up. I mean, tissue, things like that, grease. We have found uh logs of grease 20, 30 feet long. It's not uncommon in a in a six-inch main coming out of a house. There's no trying to stop it. People are just dumping it. Uh
Safe Grease Disposal At Home
SPEAKER_02some of the things you can do for grease, save old cans. Never try to put water in it when it's hot. Obviously, put it into a can, let it sit. You can actually put it in a refrigerator, it coagulates up a lot quicker, and just pitch it in the trash. It'll go to a landfill or get burnt. Uh, other things you can do is pour it into the uh garbage after it coagulates, you know, just scoop it out with a spatula or something like that. And it'll keep that that'll keep your uh sewers flowing really well in your house, especially your kitchen
Using A Garbage Disposal Correctly
SPEAKER_02sink.
Mike UvaDid um garbage disposals, in-sink garbage disposals contribute to any of that? Do people think they could put anything down the sink?
SPEAKER_02The problem with garbage disposals, people think they're wood chippers. Yes, correct. Absolutely. Um garbage disposals have come a long way. When I first started in the business, they had uh half horsepower garbage disposals, eggshells at best, they would do. They actually make one horsepower uh garbage disposals for homes now that if you drop silverware down there, it'll actually grind it up. Yeah, it's pretty powerful stuff. But I don't suggest you know doing things like that. But if if you're going to go with a garbage disposal, don't fill the garbage disposal up and then turn it on. Run water. Always run water. Take your time, put it down slowly, be careful. Most people jam it full, turn it on, and they're already sending you know dry debris down the line. You gotta have water running. And after you after you're done running your debris to it, run let the water run a minute. Let it clear the line. Because, like I say, once you get down to the basement floor, it turns into a four-inch line. And that's a lot better shot of continuing on than the inch and a half or two-inch line.
Donna FriedmanDo you have a garbage disposal?
SPEAKER_02Yes.
Donna FriedmanMine is set up for one, but it doesn't work, I don't think. I don't know. I've got the light switch, but when I moved in, it never worked, so I just never got it fixed. And I don't know, I don't know. I don't need it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's they they have their uses. Don't get me wrong. They're they're a good thing to have, you know, if you're scraping things off and at small things. You don't find many houses without them anymore, to be quite honest, which is a pretty popular item.
Mike UvaAre
Toilets, Leaks, And Preventive Fixes
Mike Uvathere other general plumbing maintenance, home maintenance practices that you can recommend for homeowners to avoid plumbing problems?
SPEAKER_02Toilets. When you hear something in the middle of the night and nobody's up, it's probably your toilet running. Um there's a product I used for years when I was doing service calls and residentials that says a running toilet could waste up to a million gallons of water a year.
Donna FriedmanWow.
SPEAKER_02To me, that's astronomical, but that was their slogan. That's a lot of water. Um, simple ways to check to see if you got a good seal, you could take open the tank up, drop a drop of food coloring in that, let it sit for about 10 minutes. If the the bowl itself turns color, you have a seal leak. That's running up your water bill. Now, if you think it's going over that there's a tube in a toilet, uh a flush valve, you can put a little baby powder on top of the water. If you see that baby powder going down that flush valve, your level is set too high on your toilet, so you need to back down your water level because you're just pouring water right down, right down the drain. Right down the drain. Just protect a little trick. Yeah, little tricks of the trade. Yeah. Other things, you know, faucets, if they're dripping, get them taken care of. If you got a small leak, it doesn't stop until it's fixed. It's gonna continue to leak. It's small, yeah, but again, it adds up. It adds up very much so, yes, sir.
Donna FriedmanI was at the um one water conference in Cincinnati uh last week, and the main speaker the first day was the director of the Cincinnati Zoo, and he's been there for a little while now, but when he first came on board, he was trying to look at the bills and the utility bills, and the water bill was just like insane. And so he just started talking to the plumbers and the maintenance guys and trying to figure out like what is going on here, and they were just going in and investigating like leak after leak after leak and fixing all of them. And his his main pitch was that like sustainability isn't necessarily solar panels, although they do a lot of those. It's really just taking care of the infrastructure that you have and making sure that you're addressing areas of waste, like your leaky faucet or your leaking toilet, things like that. He's like, once we cut back on all of those things that were just like deferred maintenance, the bills that they had went way, way down.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's good. Yeah, the preventative maintenance goes a long way, it really does. As you two know, our one plant is very old, easterly. You know, it's some of them buildings are nearing a hundred years old. Matter of fact, I just pulled a toilet out of there at the end of last year from 1936. I mean, they're stamped, the porcelain stamp. So uh I think that's when the plant was about built. Uh-huh. A lot of it. So yeah. So uh, and you know, it's like anything else. Yeah, it still works, but you know what? Is it is it efficient? You know, them type toilets drop anywhere from four to six gallons of water per flush to more toilets. And now they're like one one gallon. Residentials are anywhere from one to one six, roughly. Again, I could talk good about them, I could talk bad about them. When you gotta flush them twice, where's your savings?
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_02You know, um, even your faucets now are one one point two gallons per uh minute. Shower heads, same thing. You know, a guy like me that's a little bit older. Uh it took a little getting used to, you know. You get in the shower, you want to get wet. So where's the water? You know, it's uh but we're you know, we're moving in the right direction. I I understand it. You know, it's sometimes change takes a while
Water Efficiency And Rate Impacts
SPEAKER_02for us all to get a little bit used to. And that's that's understandable.
Donna FriedmanI think that's something they look at during the rate study, too. Do you remember that slide? And that one slide, Mike. Um, so during the rate study, they look at water consumption because the wastewater bills are based on the water consumption. And I remember they we have like a graph of water consumption in in our service area, and the line just goes down and down and down because of all of these new and improved water efficiency, yeah, like the like the shower head or the toilets and things like that. And our CFO was trying to look at population of Cleveland, population within our service area, water use, and then you know, our infrastructure plans and things like that. And how do you balance those three three factors since our um rates are based on our our water consumption?
Mike UvaYeah. So the less water people are using, that impacts us because we're not getting as much. Right, less money.
SPEAKER_02Less we have to treat too, though. It's a lot less water we have to treat, and that's now that can be costly. Costly. Um and they're gonna keep going in that direction. Uh, you know, they're they're trying to approve the low consumption toilets, uh low consumption faucets. Um one of the companies which used to be based in Ohio is very good at that. You know, they can make uh a low consumption faucet actually seem like you're getting water. The only time you really notice it is when you uh go to fillet sink, you know, a sink up. It's like, oh my, it's gonna take forever, and it will take forever. One thing they haven't uh messed with is the uh spouts to bathtubs. You know, you full you get a full uh you get a full amount of water, you know, half inch line coming out of the bathtub. Nowadays, actually, bathtubs when you build a new house, they cost you money. It's not no longer a standard thing. Walk-in showers are standard. If you want a bathtub, it costs you more money. It's not a standard fixture anymore. Actually, walk-in showers are when you want a bathtub, you have to pay more money. It's kind of backwards what it used to be.
Donna FriedmanRight. Yeah. I keep thinking about m well, my both my parents, you can cut this out. But both of my parents are older and uh like both of them, I need I need to retrofit their walk in their tubs because they have these big old, you know, tubs and they live in the room.
SPEAKER_02I'm getting older and I got some fake knees now.
Mike UvaIt's harder to get it over to the bottom.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean I think the last time I took a shot a bath is probably where my mom gave me one when I was like two years old. Just something I never did, you know.
Donna FriedmanThey have companies that'll come in and retrofit and like do the cutout and stuff like that. I'm like, I need it.
SPEAKER_02I'm skeptical on that one.
Donna FriedmanYeah.
SPEAKER_02How does that not leak?
Donna FriedmanI don't know.
SPEAKER_02I don't care how good a seal you got on that.
Donna FriedmanIt seems hard, right?
SPEAKER_02Well, let's face it, what does what does water do to rubber?
Donna FriedmanThat's true.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Deteriorates it, so I mean.
Bathtubs, Aging Homes, And Retrofits
SPEAKER_02Speaking of water, the other thing is um if you got super high pressure in your house, that's not good. Oh, okay. It's not good.
Donna FriedmanYou know because it's pressurizing your pipes all the time.
SPEAKER_02Well, that I mean, there's a possibility. Usually your main copper lines ain't gonna break, but nowadays they're not using a whole lot of copper, they're using
High Water Pressure And Pipe Risks
SPEAKER_02this PEX product.
Donna FriedmanYeah, that's like blue and red and stuff.
SPEAKER_02Correct. Um not a huge fan, but I'm old school. You know, sweat it and forget it. Well, now we're pro pressing a lot of things, and we'll see. I've been using it now. The district went to it about 15 years ago, and so far so good. But uh, yeah, if you if you're running really high pressure, and if you if it seems high and you don't know, call a plumber out, let them put a gauge on it. It's simple, put a gauge on it. If you're running over 70, 75, you should get that knockdown. You should get that knock. It's a simple fact. If you have a an older style faucet with washers in it, which City of Cleveland has a lot of older homes, can you imagine the washer the size of a dime trying to hold that pressure back? I guarantee almost every house in that faucet is probably leaking.
Donna FriedmanI didn't think about that. That like the pressure makes it more likely that your actual.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you could lose like a supply line under a sink or something because they're a lot thinner. And most of them are poly polypropylene now. They don't really use copper under there anymore. It's just the the cost is astronomical of copper right now. I mean, it's crazy. I I buy the fittings, so I know. I mean, it's crazy.
Grease In The Sewer System
Mike UvaBack to the topic of fat soils and greases. Yes. People are gonna put those products down the drain no matter what. No matter even if they listen to this podcast, probably those materials are gonna end up in the sewer lines. And a lot of it comes to our treatment plants. And there's a whole process for removing greases from the wastewater that's coming in.
SPEAKER_02Sutherly is where they uh incinerate it. Yes, they bring it all and incinerate it. Um but yeah, it's uh you know, it's not dump it and forget about it. Yeah, it might be out of your life, but it's really causing a lot of problems throughout the infrastructure. And again, like I said, even in your own house, uh, you know, it's it's gonna get it's gonna catch up to the eventually. And grease is not always the easiest thing to get rid of either. Um sometimes when you snake it, it you know, it's uh it's grease. You you run the snake through it, you know, pops open for a second, you pull the snake back out, and the grease just closes the hole right back up again. You know, now you're talking possibly you know, digging the floor up to put a clean out in the big line so you get a bigger snake. Or you know, you're talking about bringing a jet in. Uh most of your sewers now in this area are covered by the county, they actually come out and service them. But technically they only go from the clean out in the sidewalk, but right by the sidewalk to the street. I mean, if you find a nice guy, he might run backwards for you a little bit, but you gotta watch because then you can end up blowing everything up through the basement floor drains, and then they're responsible for it. So usually they would only run out from the street to the main. But uh, yeah, just get in the habit of saving a can or letting it letting it cool down by itself and just scrape it in it to the garbage. Uh, it'll save you a lot of headaches and a lot of a lot of money in the long run. It really will. Some of them are chronic. Some are chronic. You know, some of the older houses got bellies in the lines and the grease will find a belly and sit every time. So, like I said, old urban legends, run a little, if you're gonna do it, run a little cold water, it'll ball up and could continue on usually. If you run the hot water, like I said, it's gonna like a human artery, it just keeps going and going and caking the line as it goes.
Protect Your Pipes Free Tools
Mike UvaThe sewer district has a couple promotional items. Protect your pipes is the campaign that uh has everything to do with what we're talking about today. A drain catcher for sitting in the bottom of your sink for catching materials so you can just throw it in the trash. Absolutely would help. And we also have a lid for a can for greases if you want to cover that up in your fridge until it gets full. So they're real cool, they're free, and you can request one from the sewer district 216-881-8247. And we also have dye tablets for the toilet test that you were talking about. Didn't know that. So you can use food coloring, of course, as Joe mentioned, but uh we have some dye tablets and you can do a quick test on your toilet to check for leaks. Again, you can call our customer service department at 216-881-8247. And fat soil and greases are also part of our new Lake Erie League comic book coming out in September at our Clean Waterfest. September 19th. Be there. You every year.
SPEAKER_02I'm there every year. You're a fixture there every year. Yeah, every year. Just in case something were to go wrong.
Why The Trades Matter
Donna FriedmanI feel like trades are becoming more popular because there's less, we're we're kind of running short on tradespeople.
SPEAKER_02Trades are hurting right now, something terrible. Um, the younger generation, not knocking in the young generation, but they seem to want to sit behind a desk and do the computer type thing. Or more of an office atmosphere. You gotta understand, uh, certain things will never be replaced by robots. Plumbers, electricians, carpenters, many of the trades will never be replaced. Yeah, they've automated some things, absolutely. But hands-on is a great, and it's a great life. I mean, I've I've been doing it my whole life. My my father was a plumber. I fouled when I was a little bit of a knucklehead when I was younger, but I did end up following in his footsteps. And um it's it's been a good living for me. I ain't got no complaints. I mean, you gotta work hard, yeah, you're gonna get dirty, and you're probably gonna get some of that stuff on you think it's nasty, and it's gonna happen to you. But one thing we uh have a joke in the trade of a plumber, you don't chew your fingernails.
unknownOh gosh.
Mike UvaTeaches you good habits. Good habits, yeah. I'm always amazed when I hear about the trades not having enough interest. They seem like good paying jobs. Most of them are pretty good jobs, you know.
Donna FriedmanWhen I was going to school, they didn't even talk about the trades.
Mike UvaYeah.
Donna FriedmanIt was like that wasn't even part of the conversation. It was like you're going to college. And I was like, but who can afford to go? I mean, you know, college is crazy expensive anymore. And so it just wasn't part of like the curriculum at all where I went to school.
Mike UvaMm-hmm. Electricians, plumbers, anytime try and get someone for a job for a job that I can't handle myself. Right. Oh, sure.
Donna FriedmanThey're so few and far between.
Mike UvaRight. The contractors are saying we just don't have enough help, and I'm just amazed.
SPEAKER_02It's it's uh it's funny you mention that because when I went to school, we had what they call vocational classes. And that's how I got started, you know. And then uh of course you're not gonna be a licensed plumber when you get out of there. You have to go through the, you know, through the proper training. But uh Cuyahoga Valley has a great program if you want to become a uh uh you know a tradesman. Uh I believe Polaris on the West Side is still open.
Donna FriedmanI think they still are.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. They're good. The West Side Institute Technology, I'm not sure if they're open anymore, but they were big with HVAC at one time. And uh you get you get a union job, you could be out in 25 years.
Donna FriedmanWow.
SPEAKER_02With a full pension.
Donna FriedmanWhat does the uh like apprenticeship look like? Like how long do you go to school and then like how long did you have to apprentice?
SPEAKER_02Basically it's a five-year program.
Donna FriedmanOkay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, five-year program.
Donna FriedmanAnd you're paid while you're an apprentice? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're not paid, you know, you're paid accordingly.
Donna FriedmanOkay.
SPEAKER_02And as you learn, yeah, you become a journeyman plumber. And then the top is the master plumber. Yeah, what does that mean compared to a regular plumber? That's just the final step. That's it. You can't go no higher. I mean, and you could add licenses to your uh backflow preventer licenses, things like that. Uh and you you can do good for yourself, you know. You can do good for yourself.
Donna FriedmanAaron Powell Are you union here?
SPEAKER_02We are. You are. We are uh we are an ASME union. We're not uh per se in our our locals.
Donna FriedmanOkay.
SPEAKER_02But we're an ASME union, yes.
Donna FriedmanAaron Powell When you're out on the job, what is like the call that you get that you're like, oh gosh, I don't want to go do that.
SPEAKER_02You know what? I I'm a guy for a challenge and I've always been that way. I uh nothing really disappoints. Uh you know, of course, when you get a f a stack above your head that you have to snap and it's full. Oh gosh. Yeah, it's not pretty at times. Yeah. Um stack being the main pipe that comes down. I usually get a help on them and I tell the guys, I see I know you're a carpenter, but yeah, this this could get ugly. And it usually does. But uh unfortunately when they built a lot of the old buildings, um, you know, the codes were a lot different. They didn't have clean outs. You know, now like when I repipe something like EMSC, that I've almost put every drain in that place new already. Now it's plastic and it's clean outs everywhere. So the next guy who comes on is gonna have it gonna have it pretty easy. He's gonna be easier. Hopefully he'll remember me and say, hey, thanks. You know.
Donna FriedmanI have installed a toilet before. I pr I pr I laid out the tarp, got the wax ring. I debated internally whether the wax ring or like the new fandangle like plastic rings were right.
SPEAKER_02Not a fan of the plastic. They have some synthetic ones that are okay.
Donna FriedmanYeah. I went I went, you know, tried into wax. I was just like, I don't know, it works for like 300 years.
SPEAKER_02You're not gonna have any issues with it. Beeswax does not disintegrate. I I've seen people pour Draeno down toilets, and you know, it doesn't disintegrate.
Drain Chemicals, Fatbergs, And Soap Scum
SPEAKER_02And that's the other thing. Your your your uh drain openers, they don't work.
Mike UvaI What do you mean like Draeno? Yeah, they don't work.
SPEAKER_02They don't work. If a drain's open already, they might help. But uh many years I did service calls and people would say, Well, I was using Draeno for years and it was great. And why am I here? Yeah. And then and then, or you have people that that say, I didn't put nothing in it, and as soon as I grab it, my cable, I could tell my hands start burning. Oh, yeah. You can feel the yeah, even right through the gloves, right?
SPEAKER_03Oh, jeez.
SPEAKER_02And it's slimy, it's nasty. It it don't work. You got a snake. Yeah, snake is the right way. Snake or like I say, sometimes when you get real issues like with logs, you have to you know bring a jet in and go from the street to the house and pull the logs out.
Mike UvaThe National Association of Clean Water Agencies estimates that flushable wipes result in $441 million in additional cost for U.S. water utilities. This is from 2020. And New York City spends $19 million a year to clean clogged sewers.
unknownWow.
Mike UvaSo these that is a lot of money. The mammoth blockages known as fatbergs in some municipalities. The largest fat berg was discovered in a sewer in Liverpool. It weighed 400 tons and was 820 feet long. You know, you were talking about snaking in a house and how it the snake will just go right through the grease block up.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
Mike UvaApparently, these big ones in the sewers harden to like a concrete.
SPEAKER_02I believe it, because they're not gonna nothing's gonna get past them after a while. And wow. You know what? I I believe I I I knew about that story. There was actually a a little bit of a they laughed about it because they said the reason why they think it happened because what do they eat over there the most?
SPEAKER_03French fries, fish and chips.
SPEAKER_02And how do you prepare fish and chips? Yeah, yeah. 99% of them, it's grease. And yeah, they said that's actually had a lot to do with it, the the diet of the people.
Mike UvaSo very costly problem in some cities that have had these fat berg. Not sure how you'd even get that out.
SPEAKER_02You'd probably have to digles and pickaxes. There's no way that's coming out. I don't care what you got.
Donna FriedmanIt was finally removed in May 2021 using a new method of clearing, which consisted of workers feeding a steel rope through it and then cutting it with a jet.
unknownOh God.
SPEAKER_02That's that's a lot of work right there. Something that could have been prevented. Just your soap you use, people don't realize that's got animal fat in it. And uh that's usually what does your bathtubs in. Bathtubs are like the second most block thing uh, you know, that plumbers get called on bathtubs and uh sinks, you know. And that's usually the animal fat coming from the soap, same thing, clogs the line. Not many people take cold showers. They take pretty warm showers, and it's like I say, it just keeps and it gets costly. Yeah, it gets costly.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_02I mean, there's there's houses in Cleveland that people don't realize they have lead drain lines. Not only lead water lines, they have lead drain lines. It's kind of hard to adapt to them. You have to really have some skills to adapt to the lead. You mean to connect a new piece of pipe on it? Plastic or PVC or something too, yeah. It's without re putting a whole new stack in the house, it can get really expensive really quick, you know, because you're opening up walls to get to
Final Takeaways And Goodbye
SPEAKER_02it.
Donna FriedmanSo Well, thanks for coming on, Joe. It's nice meeting you.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you for having me again.
Donna FriedmanI will not uh pour any grease down the drain.
Mike UvaGood choice. Joe Boziac from our building maintenance department. Thanks for joining us. Thank you.
