Day after Thanksgiving is also know by plumbers as ‘Brown Friday’ and Nashville is one of the worst offenders
After Thanksgiving, it's one of the busiest days of the year – and we're not talking Black Friday.
Brown Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is consistently one of the plumbing industry's busiest times of year due to embarrassing plumbing emergencies like clogged sinks and overflowing toilets.
Yelp data showed that searches for “emergency plumbing” increased 65% during the Brown Friday period of 2023 when comparing searches from the two weeks before Thanksgiving Day to those on Thanksgiving Day and the two weeks after in 2023 . The search is for “24-hour emergency”. According to Yelp, the number of plumbers on Thanksgiving Day was higher than any other day in November 2023.
Yelp has ranked Nashville as a major contributor to the Brown Friday crisis. Music City was the third largest city behind Miami, Florida (No. 2) and Los Angeles, California (No. 1).
Here's what else you should know.
What is Brown Friday?
In the plumbing industry, Brown Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, considered the busiest time of year for plumbing emergencies.
“It absolutely has to do with what you think,” Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angi (formerly Angie's List), told USA TODAY. “Whether you have kitchen sink drain issues, toilet drain issues, or garbage disposal issues, we overload our homes on Thanksgiving and sometimes it doesn’t work out.”
In Angi's first Brown Friday survey, 40% of post-Thanksgiving plumbing problems are caused by clogged kitchen sinks, often from food waste. And 26% of respondents said they experienced plumbing issues after hosting a Thanksgiving meal.
“People are just using everything more,” Hicks added. “Maybe they normally use one bathroom in their house and two or three when the whole family comes over, or they just cook so much that they overdo it in the kitchen, and that can lead to problems.”
According to Yelp, they are the ten most congested cities in the United States
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Los Angeles, California
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Miami, Florida
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Nashville, Tennessee
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Sacramento, California
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Baltimore, Maryland
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Las Vegas, Nevada
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Minneapolis, Minnesota
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Providence, Rhode Island
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San Francisco, California
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San Diego, California
How to avoid a plumbing emergency on Brown Friday
Hicks and Yelp recommend the following:
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Limit the amount you put in the kitchen sink: Avoid pouring grease down the drain, Hicks said. Additionally, avoid using the garbage disposal as your primary method of disposing of food after vacation.
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Encourage guests to use restrooms appropriately: Make sure you have trash cans in the bathroom so people don't throw things in the toilet they shouldn't, which could lead to bigger problems, Hicks said.
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If you have a plumbing emergency, do the following: While you wait for the plumber to come, avoid using the clogged drain and use a bucket to remove standing water, Hicks said. Know where your main home water shutoff valve is and turn off the water to prevent further damage, she said.
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Distribute water consumption: According to Yelp, try to stagger tasks and schedule time between dishes, laundry, and showers to avoid overwhelming the plumbing system.
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Check the weather: If freezing temperatures are expected, you can prevent potential problems by allowing faucets to drip lightly to prevent pipes from freezing, which could burst, according to Yelp.
Contributor: USA TODAY
Diana Leyva covers breaking news and service journalism for The Tennessean. Contact her at [email protected] or follow her on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at @_leyvadiana
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville is among the “most congested” cities on Brown Friday after Thanksgiving
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