What to do if your shower drain is badly clogged?
To clear the drain you have to determine what the cause is.
Most of the time it is probably hair and soap residue that causes the clog.
There are several ways to unclog your shower drain. You can try it with liquids or you can try to use a mechanical plunge.
This article will cover the mechanical plunge method.
How to use a drain snake
Normally you would use a plunger to clear the drain but shower drains are a bit harder to clear with a regular plunger. Luckily it is easy to clear a clogged shower drain with a drain snake.
A normal tub drain is about 1 1/2” in size but a shower drain is often 2” in diameter.
A small snake can slip through the tap easily and quickly. With the right tool and these following instructions a clogged shower drain can be cleared in no time.
Before you begin you have to remove the shower grate. Sometimes the grate is fastened down by some screws (be careful not to strip them).
But most of the time the grate is just pushed in place and will pop off with a little careful prodding.
It is tempting to try and send the snake through the grate because many times the cable is small enough to fit, but the problem will be when you bring the snake back out.
Often the snake will pull back so much hair that you will have no chance of getting it back through the hole in the grate that it originally went through.
So let’s get started
1.Remove the grate that covers the shower drain carefully.
Clean off any remaining hair or debris that may be clinging to the grate once it is removed. It’s a dirty job but someone has got to do it ;)
2.Run a small snake into the drain, preferably a power top snake with a ¼ cable since it can easily maneuver the trap under the shower.
I prefer a snake with a plastic barbed snake, which would be better at snagging the clog.
Hand crank snakes can clear this stoppage as well but they are a bit more work.
Hold the cable close to the drain so you will be able to keep the cable from kinking (you don’t want to cable to kink up).
Go slow at first until you know it made it past the trap. Use quick, short, in-and-out strokes in rapid succession to work the clog.
3.Before you put the shower grate back on you have to test the drain. If the has a blockage try running the snake cable further down the line.
Keep the drain stopped up (water in the drain) if possible so you will know when it clears and since the water doesn't compress like air will
Do not go too far with the snake cable. It is not a good idea to get far into the 3” or bigger drain with such a small cable because it can kink up or tie into knots making it difficult to pull the snake back.
4.Once you are happy with how the shower drains put the grate back on and you are done.
Run a bit of water to help flush out any hair and debris that was loosed by the snake cable.
If this method of plunging won't work then you can try it with baking soda and hot water. I will show how to use this method in another article.
