Slow draining shower waste

[Adsibob]

21 minutes ago, markocosic said:

Share a link / photo. The traps on these slot drains are usually removable from the top. 

 

This sort?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL4XEZcmXWI

 

It's usually a right pain to slide that grey part out and even more of a pain to slide it back in again. (tends to want to "pop out" again unless you get everything spotless) Ours has a strategically placed bottle cap wedged between the grey part and the wall of the drain to hold it into the pipe.

 

If there's a second trap / alternative trap that's only accessible by cutting into the ceiling from underneath then that's a bit of an f-you move by the plumber. Cut in an access hatch as you'll be needing to de-wife / de-daughter that trap regularly. (short hair, pubes, soap etc sail though; it's long hair that twirls around itself then gets all kinds of non-rinsable conditioners and whatnot attached to it that really block these)

I'm not at home now, but this is the product we installed. If you scroll across the diagrams at the bottom, you'll see this:

 

So it seems that it should be possible to access some of the bits by unscrewing the top parts. Not sure how i'll get much purchase on it, the pieces are small and fiddly for my fat fingers.

[Iceverge]

Get someone with narrow fingers to pull out the hair/soap scum fatberg that's always lodged in there. 

 

For some reason that always seems to be me, despite not having the slimmest fingers. 

 

One option to consider might be to put a finer screen earlier on in the drainage process that can be cleared of hair easily. Or shaving your Mrs head in her sleep.

 

 

 

 

[Adsibob]

7 minutes ago, Iceverge said:

Get someone with narrow fingers to pull out the hair/soap scum fatberg that's always lodged in there. 

 

For some reason that always seems to be me, despite not having the slimmest fingers. 

 

One option to consider might be to put a finer screen earlier on in the drainage process that can be cleared of hair easily. Or shaving your Mrs head in her sleep.

 

 

 

 

I've purchased some plastic thingies which are 50cm long and flexible, smooth when pushed inwards but jagged when pulled back. Should hopefully catch some hairballs.

[markc]

I bought a pair of long forceps (off eBay)  for clearing my shower drains, around 300mm long, slender and curved ends, they work a treat

[markocosic]

Easy peasy. Long nose pliers and pull out the trap from above 🙂

 

 

 

[Marvin]

You don't even have to take it apart to plunge it. its just a standard shower trap.

Edited April 18, 2023 by Marvin

[Marvin]

the first two parts in your diagram just pull upward

[TonyT]

Mr muscle foaming cleaner to get rid of the soap scum build up, one reason why we always use 50mm pipe!

 

boil the kettle and chuck that down too!

 

 

[Nickfromwales]

1 hour ago, TonyT said:

one reason why we always use 50mm pipe!

Same here. Never use 40mm for a shower, 50mm is night and day better and offers a decent bit of space for a natural air-break too.

[Adsibob]

Finally got around to unblocking this, having received the bendy plastic fishing tool with jagged edges from Mr Bezos a few weeks ago. Without doubt the most revolting maintenance job I’ve done so far. Fished out handfuls and handfuls of SWMBO’s hair out of the drain. It was actually quite a sophisticated drainage system. What I thought was going to be a long 40mm pipe, was actually only about 9cm long before it hit what was effectively a bowl. All the hair was stuck in this tube. The tube could be pulled out altogether (wish I’d discovered this at the beginning of the task, rather than at the end). So I think the way it works is water fills the bowl, and only once the bowl is overflowing does it drain to the actual waste pipe. The advantage of this system is that any blockage should mostly stay very local. Though it did make me wonder whether there is a permanent cesspit of stagnant water (fermenting SWMBO’s shed hair) within that bowl.

Edited May 26, 2023 by Adsibob

[dpmiller]

you understand how a water trap works, yes?

[Adsibob]

24 minutes ago, dpmiller said:

you understand how a water trap works, yes?

I know how a typical sink and toilet trap work. But this appears different, though I guess it’s the same principle. And looking back at the drawing of the waste system which I posted earlier in the thread, it all makes sense now.

Edited May 26, 2023 by Adsibob

[Adsibob]

I sometimes wonder if my DIY efforts are cursed. First shower after I successfully unblocked the drain: SWMBO sticks her head around the bathroom door and says “turn it off, it’s leaking into the utility room”.

I thought I had been gentle with my fishing, and looking back at the diagram posted above, I cannot see what damage I couldd have done. But unless this is a massive coincidence, the laws of temporal logic suggest my unblocking has indeed caused the leak.

[Nickfromwales]

OK. Did you unscrew the top threaded part out of the waste fitting that resides under the tray? You should have been unscrewing.......................nothing.

[Adsibob]

16 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

OK. Did you unscrew the top threaded part out of the waste fitting that resides under the tray? You should have been unscrewing.......................nothing.

Nope. Only thing I did was prise off the top item of the two circled below, fish around for 15min, remove hair, then realised I could pull out the second item circled below, so pulled that out too (it came out really easily with no resistance, which made refocusing hair much easier. Then I returned everything, to how I thought it was. But apparently not. Any ideas?

 

[Nickfromwales]

These things are bombproof unless not fitted A1. 

When SWMBO said "we're taking on water" was the water in the shower area confined as it normally is? Inside the cubicle / other?

[Adsibob]

1 hour ago, Nickfromwales said:

These things are bombproof unless not fitted A1. 

When SWMBO said "we're taking on water" was the water in the shower area confined as it normally is? Inside the cubicle / other?

Yes, the water was completely confined to the wet room area. Ironically, as I was showering, I was thinking so nice not to flood the wet room for a change (because of the slow draining waste, we were occasionally flooding the wet room - but I can’t see how that caused the leak, as it’s a wet room and leak only started after I fiddle around with the fishing tool). To clarify, only thing I removed (and then re-instsated) are the two circled items in the photo below:

 

 

 

[dpmiller]

were you rodding hard enough to push a joint apart?

[Pocster]

4 minutes ago, dpmiller said:

were you rodding hard enough to push a joint apart?

We’ve all been there …

[Nickfromwales]

Time to get on Amazon and get a cheap borescope, and take a peek. Is there a downlight / other downstairs, where the shower is?  

[Adsibob]

1 hour ago, Nickfromwales said:

Time to get on Amazon and get a cheap borescope, and take a peek. Is there a downlight / other downstairs, where the shower is?  

No. The nearest “entry point” from the utility room underneath is a hatch in the utility room ceiling to access the bath waste which is about 1.6m away. It’s Sod’s Law that I read on here (possibly a post by @Bitpipe) that the Lusso Stone bath we had ordered (a free standing bath) had a dodgy waste, so i insisted we have an access hatch to it. Never occurred to me we would have a problem with a shower waste.

 

How bad is this situation @Nickfromwales? Will they have to cut into the ceiling from underneath, or can it be sorted from the wet room?

 

On the plus side, it would only be ruining the decor in the utility room. On the downside, we spent a small fortune sound proofing the utility room, because part of it sits under our bedroom and we run laundry machines at night.

Edited May 28, 2023 by Adsibob

[Adsibob]

1 hour ago, dpmiller said:

were you rodding hard enough to push a joint apart?

No, i don’t think so. Also, the implement I was using was very thin and bendy, so it’s just bizarre that it would have the rigidity to do any damage. I can only conclude that the installation of the shower waste was pathetically bad, such that 15 minutes of fishing for hair had damaged it. Completely ridiculous that I deliberately avoided using the  acid products, because I didn’t want to damage the pipe work, and yet I’ve ended up in this position.

[Nickfromwales]

It’s not a soft option. Sounds like you have pushed the compression fitting enough to have moved the seal. 
Time to start cutting the ceiling I’m afraid. 
Don’t try cutting a small section out, it’s pointless. You’ll need to remove prob 600mm square to be able to physically get in and carry out a repair. 
Preserve the bit of board you take out, and reinstate it. Box clever and cut down the centre of the timbers and find the plasterboard screws with a small string magnet. Utilising the section you cut out will mean very little filling and sanding etc.

 

Or, buy a hatch and cut to that dimension? 

[Adsibob]

1 minute ago, Nickfromwales said:

It’s not a soft option. Sounds like you have pushed the compression fitting enough to have moved the seal. 
Time to start cutting the ceiling I’m afraid. 
Don’t try cutting a small section out, it’s pointless. You’ll need to remove prob 600mm square to be able to physically get in and carry out a repair. 
Preserve the bit of board you take out, and reinstate it. Box clever and cut down the centre of the timbers and find the plasterboard screws with a small string magnet. Utilising the section you cut out will mean very little filling and sanding etc.

 

Or, buy a hatch and cut to that dimension? 

Thanks. I owe the builder a 5 figure retention sum that is due when he tends to a few snagging issues in the next couple of weeks. He’s actually due to start that work very soon. Is this a legitimate snagging issue? Surely his installation of the drain waste was sub par if it couldn’t withstand it’s first proper clean?

[Nickfromwales]

18 minutes ago, Adsibob said:

Is this a legitimate snagging issue? Surely his installation of the drain waste was sub par if it couldn’t withstand it’s first proper clean?

Yup, this is a pile of shite. Rodding, even vigorously, shouldn't start any chuffing leak. Doing what you say you've done even less so!!

I thought you'd DIY'd this tbh but if the builder / plumber installed it then it's very poor for this to happen. Contact them and ask for them to come fix it and make sure you are there the day that they do so you can see first hand what had caused the leak and gather evidence.