Auger won't fit in drain

[Julie P.]

Hi, my tub is clogged up. draining has gotten gradually worse over the months to the point it brarely drains at all now and shower water is left standing for days if i do not manually use a bucket to remove the water.

I have closet auger, the thin and long kind meant for sink pipes. the problem is the spirally end of the auger (the part that is meant to hook onto debris) will not fit into the tub drain opening since the house is very old, and there is a strange horizontal metal bar going across the diameter of the drain. so i can't even get the auger into the drain to begin with. and drano isn't working.

thanks for any advice!

julie

[Mike]

Can we assume you have already tried some kinda toxic liquid drain opener?

[DerbyDad03]

A couple of options, well, three actually...

1 - I used to use one of these until I replaced my galvanized pipes with PVC:

Very thin tube and the water jets blasted the debris down the drain.

2 - What kind of stopper do you have? Some drains have a stopper set- up that is notorious for catching hair. I got fancy with a step-on stopper when I replaced my tub, only to find that bars across the bottom of the drain opening would constantly catch hair and had to be taken apart and cleaned every few months. Drain cleaners just poured right past it. I eventually replaced the drain with a standard pop-up and haven't taken the tools out since.

3 - Where's the toilet? My tub connects to the stack just below the toilet. More than once in the past,I have pulled the toilet and snaked the tub trap by coming in from that direction since I couldn't get a regular snake through the drain opening.

[Blattus Slafaly]

What I used to do is rig a hose connection to either the bath tub faucet or the sink faucet. Put the other end over the tub drain and pack wet rags around it and hold it tight. Have someone else put a plunger over the overflow thing. Then have a third person turn the faucet on. The water pressure will blow out all the hair and crap out of the trap and down the drain. Worked for me. ( I did all three things myself) Then the tub drains nicely again. Water pressure does wonders.

[Norminn]

I read a tip somewhere about using a length of steel cable as an auger. That trick might have included putting the cable into a power drill. Have you tried using a length of malleable wire to see if you can hook into the offending object? When my shower suddenly began to drain slowly, it is what I used. Careful not to use wire stiff enough to get stuck. I took out an amazing glob of hair. Yuck! The drain seemed fine one day, and very slow the next. Before I finished up the project, I dropped one of the screws for the drain cover down the drain. Hubby got a neat, telescoping thingy with a magnet to fish it out with. When I first began probing the drain, it seemed like the wire went down too far and hit something soft .... I was afraid that there was a hole in the pipe and I was hitting dirt, but it was just a mass of hair. Good luck.

Is the horizontal bar part of the stopper mechanism? Got an access panel to get at it? That could be what hair might hang onto.

[Big_Jake]

You need to snake down the overflow. Take the two screws out that hold the cover on, and pull out the "innards" if so equipped. Good luck.

JK

[Mark]

Can we assume you have already tried some kinda toxic liquid drain opener?

Isn't that what DRANO is? She says that isn't working...

[Stormin Mormon]

Get as much water out, as possible. (Turkey baster.) Pour in a big spaghetti pot of boiling water. Might loosen the grease.

[DerbyDad03]

re: Get as much water out, as possible. (Turkey baster.)

If she can't get a thin snake into the drain, how is she going to get a turkey baster in there?

re: Might loosen the grease

It's a tub.

[Stormin Mormon]

re: Get as much water out, as possible. (Turkey baster.)

If she can't get a thin snake into the drain, how is she going to get a turkey baster in there?

CY:She doesn't have to get a turkey baster INTO the drain, just to the screen or strainer at the end.

re: Might loosen the grease

It's a tub.

CY: Tubs suffer from hair and grease.

[Violetta]

BRILLIANT. Worth reading through the others to get to this.