Blocked shower waste

[Dave Baker]

My shower tray has been draining slower and slower recently and finally blocked completely. It's a bungalow so on the ground floor, the grid in the tray is not the removable type as far as I can tell and the waste then goes under the house into the "sump" (suspended floor) and runs 15 feet under there to an external exit. The only methods I can think of using are a sink plunger, a very slim snake spring thingy or chemicals. A plunger is only a couple of quid on Ebay but I also see bicycle pump type thingies for a fiver. Are they any good?

Suggestions?

[Jeff Layman]

Quite likely to be hair blocking the trap. If so, the best thing to use is caustic soda, which will simply dissolve hair in a few minutes.

I have my own method of using it which is pretty extreme. However, once you have got the pipe unblocked, it is sensible to put a tablespoon of caustic soda crystals down the pipe every 3 - 6 months to help keep it clear.

[Mr Pounder]

Sink plunger. About 30 bod at your local hardware store and worth a go.

[Peter Andrews]

I used something similar on my shower two weeks ago - worked a treat!

Peter

[Sam Plusnet]

With those plungers you do run some risk of causing more trouble if any of the pipe joints aren't strong.

I use something like this

to clear hair from the drain. It's low tech, easy, cheap and unlikely to do any harm.

[harryagain]

+1. Way to go. Best done once or twice a year to clear the gunge out.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Used to happen every few months to the shower here.

My showering technique is now changed. I start showering with my foot blocking the waste hole so the shower tray fills with water. By the time I've washed and rinsed my hair, the water level will be coming close to the top of the tray, and I move my foot so it runs away. This rapid flow clears the debris from the pipe which tends to collect with only the normal show rate. In 10+ years, it has never blocked again.

[ss]

[Mr Pounder]

Its the bits of coal in the bath that get down the plug hole here. Perhaps I should move down south?

[Roger Mills]

Do you have access to the under-floor space? If so, perhaps you could crawl under and remove the trap from underneath and clean it out?

If there's no access, it's very bad practise to fit a trap whose innards cannot be removed from above. Are you *sure* that yours can't? Mine *is* accessible from above. You simply prise out the spoked wheel bit from the top, which enables you to get at a bit which has to be rotated anti-clockwise and lifted out.

[Nick Odell]

Ditto, except that I don't think the waste trap would appreciate even a portion of my bodyweight on top of it so I use a Travel Plug. No, not the sort with pins sticking out at odd angles. This:

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Nick

[Dave Baker]

Well they didn't have a plunger up at'th farm next door so I took the plunge, ahem, and ordered a cheap one off Ebay for £1.95. Then Sod's Law strikes as usual while I'm round at friends just a short while later on and they've got one in the kitchen. Brought it home, ran some water into the shower tray, couple of pumps and job jobbed. Will still be handy to have my own one just in case for the future.

I had loads of trouble with a regularly blocking sewer pipe outside the last house so I got pretty handy with drain rods over the years but I've never had a U bend I couldn't easily get to to pull apart if it blocked so I've never had occasion to use a sink plunger. This shower tray drain is definitely not removeable from the top though and I didn't fancy pulling up floorboards to get into the sump under the house so I'm quite pleased it was such an easy fix. Thanks for all the suggestions.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Might be worth a check that the plunger hasn't just blown off the waste pipe, and it's now draining into the subfloor ;-)

[dennis]

On 04/01/2015 10:08, Andrew Gabriel wrote: #

If its a traditional rubber sucker type it would be very hard to get it to do that. They suck.

[Martin Bonner]

The plastic version of the traditional rubber sucker type that I have, very definitely blows! There's an initial phase where you blow out the air sideways, then you fill the plunger bowl with water, and it blows out the blockage.

[Martin Brown]

The gel formulation sold in the sheds/supermarkets is safer to handle than the raw chemicals but you should wear gloves and eye protection with caustic. Put something over the top to cover the plughole and don't look down it to see what is going on - a blowback of hot caustic although rare is no fun at all. Flush afterwards with plenty of water.

I only do it when the shower is becoming slowish to drain. I'd say no more often than every couple of years.