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Im currently visiting my daughter in her student house. She shares with 4 other girls.
The shower is v v slow draining. Lots of the girls have long hair and in combination with industrial amounts of conditioner, the u bend gets blocked.
I cant get under the shower tray to empty it, so i need an elegant pour-in solution to fix it for them.
Anyone had any success here?
Plunger.
Pour in stuff works fine.
Just put it in then wait a few hours for it to work
Not had much luck with the pour in stuff. In fact I've had it congeal, solidify and make things worse. Have had some luck with hooking out hair using a spoke. Push the bend end down into the hair, twist it a little then pull. Works if it isn't too matted but if it has got as far as a full blockage I reckon a disassemble is the only way. Is there really no way in? That is pretty poor design.
Caustic Soda.
no dissolver has ever worked for me and I ended up ripping up the floor boards to get at it
What you need is one of these bad boys! https://www.amazon.co.uk/Monument-1459W-Master-Plunger-Unblocker/dp/B0001P0F4A/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1518262055&sr=8-7&keywords=plunger+sink
Repeated problems with a slow draining shower and it cleared it out. If it's really bad then it may be worth pouring in some stuff first (or just use bleach) so that it breaks down a little before you plunge. Make sure that you block the overflow as you plunge too.
Caustic soda usually works but ideally needs to be left overnight. Chuck a few kettles of hot water down first to get the reaction rate up.
There is a dissolver called "one shot" that usually works, its strong caustic stuff so go carefully
Can u suck it out with a wet vac? I just bought karcher and the suction is pretty strong. For drain duties i d block up overflow and make a seal, suck it out. Good luck, i m a landlord so tried most things.
I think the problem with some of the chemical unblocking products marketed at domestic users, is that they are a very dilute version. Partly this may be for safety concerns, but I think it's often more to cut costs, e.g. products sold in Poundland type stores as 'caustic soda' or similar, which actually contain only 10% caustic soda. Those products are very bad value for money compared with the proper full strength product available in Boots etc., and because they are relatively ineffective, you are literally throwing your money down the drain.
I think the most effective chemical cleaner is concentrated sulphuric acid, like One Shot .
I would only use it as a last resort. It's effective, but nasty stuff and will damage any metal it comes into contact with, so
- Protective equipment (gloves, glasses/goggles, long sleeves) should be worn when using it.
- If pouring it down a sink or similar, I would use a plastic funnel inserted through the holes of the metal drain in the sink, to prevent the acid coming into to contact with it. If the drain is blocked and you pour too much in and too quickly, you risk the acid level rising back up the drain and again coming into contact with the metal drain.
Most modern shower wastes have a removeable grating which gives access to the trap. Can you post a photo of the waste?
Get one of these
https://www.screwfix.com/p/drain-unblocker/11325#_=p
The chemical unblockers won’t remove the hair which is causing the blockage when dirt and soap stick to it. Once the hair has been removed use a chemical unblocker then make sure they are using a hair trap to prevent it happening again
Currently delving with a piece of coat hanger....
Just do what my 79 year old dad did. After a few days of trying to unblock my brothers bathroom drain with plungering, prodding and caustic sodaring. He thought he'd go up a ladder to remove the inspection cover where he found a child's paint brush which he removed and got covered in everything behind it.
Thankfully the caustic soda was diluted with everything else in there.😀 My mum was highly amused.
Ours gets blocked occasionally. It's not a U bend, but a shallow circular trap surrounding the drainage hole. The screwfix spinny whisk thing is way too big to do any good. A coathanger bent into a hairpin hook can just about loosen the blockage. The biggest culprit is plastic razor covers stuck in the trap.
Pop off or unscrew the grate on the shower waste, select a donor toothbrush, drop in as far as you can then get twiddling.
Brissles capture any hair lodged down there and should pull out any associated gunk also. Works every time on ours.
Be careful with the caustic unblockers, possible to knacker pipes or joint seals, that stuff can get very hot when reacting.
A lot of shower traps are not suitable for pouring cleaners into.
I think you’d be ok with the domestic stuff but the one shot cleaner I would be very reluctant to use on a shower trap.
It’s very good but potentially quite dangerous.
Pour ins have worked fine for me. Need to buy the ones surgically for hair and soap though and leave overnight.
If it's bad, do it two consecutive nights.
Be very careful with powerful plungers (vicar).
I managed to blow a joint in the waste using one. Fortunately there wasn't much water in the bath and the tray I had underneath caught it.
I'd go for a mechanical method like those springs you can buy that go down the waste or a chemical one.
If you have a Wilko local to you get one if their unblocker kits - bottle of dissolver gel and a long plastic, bendy stick with barbs on. Only £1.50 and I found it very effective at getting through a hefty blockage.
Dishwasher tablet and pint of boiling water should remove alot of grime.
Maybe have to grind it a little , wear gloves as they are usually caustic based
oh and full PPE when adding the boiling water
Lidls are currently selling a set of 3 drain unblockers. Twisted fkexy wire with bristles 18 inches long 3 different diameters. Probably thin enough to unblock a shower trap
£3 or so
Check that the soil vent pipe isn't blocked outside, ours had blocked as the water/shower gel from the shower congealed as it hit the gully and had blocked it. I dismantled it and cleaned it out end of problem.
Well i have managd to fix this. Thank you for all your suggestions.
I found a piece of stainless wire about spoke diameter and made a little U shaped hook. Some skillful fishing pulled a lot of matted hair out, and then 2 kettles of boiling water to loosen any conditioner that had congealed in there.
Thank you for all you help STW
I used to have very long hair, so a familiar problem.
just putting bleach down isn't enough as it disperses too quickly.
So I bought some bicarbonate of soda from lidls (an alkaline, so won't react with bleach) and tipped a fair bit of the soda into the shower drain.
The soda builds up into a wee mound, over the drain.
As it begins to spill over into the shower tray, I added the bleach.
eventually the bleach slowly finds its way down by gravity and gets a chance to dissolve any gunk.
You can keep adding bleach until the mound of soda disappears.
wait about 8 hours, and then rinse any remaining bleach off the shower tray.
simples!
Aqua vac, with a thin piece of cloth over the nozzle, to stop it ingesting the hair, liquids will flow through, youl find a forest of hair comes out.
beware of power flushing it as sometimes joints are push fit and somebodies forgot to seal them with glue/solvent etc.Youll not know till water pours from the ceiling.
As mentioned, One Shot works very well, but is really nasty stuff.