Just be sure to clean the hair catcher, or it may become clogged as well!Also, clean your pipes seasonally using the above all-natural cleaning solution. If you’ve gone through the drain and not the overflow, you can remove the overflow and use flashlight to see what the cord is stuck on and work from there. Thank you. The drain removal tool has teeth that grab the drain from the inside. I have paid plumbers and still no fix my manager charges me 90 dollars every time one is sent to unclog she refuses to belive that its anything on her end I dont know how to get her to relize the pipes are shot and need replaced just looking in the grain you can see the pipes are corroded . i havent had to clean my bothersome tub drain since i took toputting a small squirt of leftover laundry deter\gent. It doesn't take long to make, and it can keep your shower water flowing freely all year. I thought the drain was clogged but somehow the stopper got flipped down. 1) shows the threads from the clicker assembly. You might start by tugging lightly on the trip level rod. The problem that I am having is that the overflow on my bathtub doesn’t have screws attaching it. I NEVER would have thought to try that without seeing it in a video. This is a mechanical switch with internal linkage which can get out of alignment and need adjusting, can rust and break, or can come apart at the joint. Once it’s gone, clean the drain with a cloth and a mild bathroom cleanser or … Especially for pipes you can take apart. Nothing! You’ll find shower systems, tiling tools, and more. There will be old plumber’s putty and grime stuck around the drain hole once you remove the basket. Here's How To Stop It, The Best 3 Septic Tank Treatments Money Can Buy. Shower drains will become clogged from time to time. Thanks AG for asking, I’d start with plain vinegar and see how that does. A dirty bathtub drain can create horrible odors and clogs in your tub. Pro Tip: Have a small trash bag or plastic bag handy. Your email address will not be published. (Top 3 Tips), The Best Drill Bits For Glass | Drill Glass Easily With These 3 Drill Bits), Home Remedies For A Backed Up Septic Tank, ½ cup each of white vinegar and baking soda, Shower Drain Smell? \ You can try using a strainer wrench. We have been in the same old house for 45 years. Saw on the net that you can’t remove this kind. Awesome stuff my friend!! In order to plunge a shower drain correctly, cover up these overflow holes. Start with the stopper on the clicker mechanism and make sure it is tightened down all the way. Thanks as always for reading, watching, and being part of our awesome community. Any ideas to get it out? My screw going into the drain cover is stripped. Ick. When i put the ZipIt down nothing more comes up. Removal depends on the type of bathtub stopper you have. B. Leaky valves. On the bottom side of the plate, you'll see one or more holes. And some of the hardware is ancient. Thank you, this was all it took to fix my bathtub. The cause here is usually because the connecting rod attached to the trip lever has become shortened from use. This is a pain in the behind!! The lubrication may help to loosen up the stuck plunger from the walls of the overflow tube. Problems with this type are usually signaled when the pop-up stopper fails to push up enough to open the bathtub drain—it wants to stay in the closed position constantly. All that you need for this remedy is a medium-sized pot and water. A snake will not fit and the “hair snag poker” they sell at Home Depot didn’t reach far enough to pull anything out. Our drain has a screen on it that doesn’t have screws on it. I’d be happy to help. 1. The Best 3 Septic Tank Treatments Money Can Buy. Trip Lever Bathtub Drain Screws Are Stuck & Rusty By Steven Symes The screws on the trip plate can rust from exposure to water in the tub. When you have a slow-flowing or stopped-up shower drain, what do you do? That happened to me. Grab our free guide if you’re doing a DIY bathroom remodel – it shares how to remodel a bathroom in 10 days or less. Press the replacement drain in the opening on top of the putty. But if you’d prefer not to mess with it you can try to remove the overflow cover plate and remove the plunger mechanism. In most showers, it simply unscrews so that you gain direct access to the drain.With the stopper removed, you can line up the plunger with your shower drain. So interesting and informative and I SO wish I had seen it BEFORE I spent 320 — YES! Make sure you use some of that money on yourself-LOL. so wanted to pull out the plunger. Using boiling water on PVC pipes can loosen the plumbing joints, which may cause a leak. Stuck tub drain? I have a different tub drain than shown I your video, and my overflow does not have a stopper as far as I know. Forgot to confirm not a spammer. Great post! Fish it down the drain until you hit the obstruction. If you have a toe-touch, push-pull, flip-it or lift-and-turn style stopper, it'll … Now that that's out of the way. I have a feeling whoever screwed it on did not thread it correctly, hence it is sticking. Fill up the pot with water, and bring it to a boil.Pour the water directly down the shower drain a little at a time to give it a chance to work through the gunk. A lot of times your P-Trap is clogged. Then, bend the hanger to not only make it straight but also easy to turn. Today I took a shower and found myself standing in about 10 inches of water which refused to budge. After trying half a bottle of drain cleaner, plunging and a failed attempt at pushing the snake thru I took it apart (as clearly explained in your video). Yet, I could figure this out-LOL. My bathtub is completely clogged and barely draining. This also works really well for showers . Sounds like the shower head might be cross threaded or the installer didn’t use Teflon tape. Any suggestions. The drain is still slow and doesnt drain well it takes forever. Alas, it is not. Thank you very much for the video. Doing these kinds of fixes go far beyond saving money. If the solutions above don't improve the flow of your shower drain, there may be a bigger problem at play. Another reason that the trip lever in your bathtub is stuck could be because the link mechanism (or something further down in the system) is broken. Drainage isn’t horrible, I was just trying to be proactive. It’s paid for so why move. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you. Sounds like a plan. I’ll make that a future post. When you don't use it properly, it can actually make your clogged drain worse. I went to the bathtub, tried the snake and could not get it fished into the plumbing. You can buy a tool at a hardware store to remove stripped screws. We tried wrapping it in gauze with the pliers (my neighbor’s suggestion…no. Thoughts as to how I could have made the clog worse, despite pulling out a ton of hair? What if the tub is an older model, with different parts, and has standing water? Does Shower Water Drain Into The Septic Tank? how much baking S….and how much vinegar….? I followed it to a tee got a huge gob of hair out and now, for some reason, the water isn’t draining at all (total stand still). Great information. If you're like millions of other Americans, you probably reach for Drano. It is Thursday evening at your house. That is some gross stuff coming out of there. Toss in over a decade of thyroid trouble and I lose a lot of it down the drains. Only thing I can wonder is if somehow when putting the overflow stopper back on/in I triggered it to get stuck in the no drain position (?) Once you remove the hair, place it into the plastic bag to avoid dripping it across your floor on the way to the trash can. You got it!! Clogged bathtubs. used baking soda and vinegar, WD-40, PB blaster, let it stay over night. It breaks up grime and the hair that goes down your shower drain. Bleh! We sure don’t want to pay for that fix again unless we have to. Press it until the putty comes out and remove the excess. But neither is a plumber. How Often Should You Pump Your Septic Tank? I then used drano and let it sit for 30 minutes and ran hot water. It might be attached to the tub with adhesive…and they may have done this at the factory. I’m going to try this! You can totally do this on your own without picking up the phone to call a plumber or handyman. little came up. This gave me the confidence to tackle it myself like many other things I have had to do. Who knows, you might not even have to remove the drain cover if this is the case. I also used a plunger and plunger the drain as well. If any drain feels a little sluggish I treat it immediately. I would never have expected it to be so easy. 5. We have a old tub that needs cleaning. I am trying to fix it on my own to save money. Voila.. out came all the bundles of hair and thereafter the sound of water flowing was pure music to my ears. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. I believe it to be stuck in the p trap. The tub drains very slow, so when I shower I’m I a full tub. The hanger goes down further than the needle nose pliers. Fortunately this is an easy fix — for anyone. Unfortunately, many of us pretend that nothing is wrong (although we know better) when our bathtub starts backing up. If your bathtub’s draining slowly, there may be a build-up of hair, soap and other gunk clogging the drain. One of the things I appreciate most about being handy is saving money on simple plumbing problems. I carry 3 plungers, one normal toilet size 2 smaller ones. I agree, cleaning the drain is for the faint of heart. However, you can limit how often that it happens to you by taking preventive measures. If you’ve even been frustrated with a slow draining bathtub and didn’t know how to fix it, today’s brand new Home Repair Tutor show is for you. What kind of pipes do you have? I removed the stopper and used a ZipIt and retrieved quite a bit of hair. fast-ez. Good tip on using the Dawn and baking soda/vinegar. $90 will buy a lot of stuff for us diyer’s lol thanks for your tip…even though it is a little disgusting looking it is an easy fix….i use dawn and vinegar to clean and once in a while i will pour some baking soda down the drain and watch it bubble cause it’s fun and also because i think it cleans some of that yuck off the inside xx. In order to plunge a shower drain correctly, cover up these overflow holes.Although it's not the most efficient way, you can just plug the holes with a rag while you plunge. Do I just try draino? so I live with it any clues on what to do will help. How to Snake a Tub Drain Do not snake through the drain! How do I clean out my bathtub drain when the drain screen doesn’t have a screw? Borax is also a good option that isn’t toxic. and it’s reusable. Before you start plunging, though, cover up the overflow drain. Nothing happened to the tub water when I flushed the toilet, which was reassuring, but if I ran water in the sink, disgusting gunk would burble up through the tub drain, and the water level would rise. The left photo (Fig. And as an Amazon Associate, we earn a commission on qualifying purchases after clicking on those links, at no additional cost to you. If you get this question twice it’s because I thought it rejected the first one. The cool part is that now you know how to fix any future hair balls-lol. plunger first always. Thanks Char, couldn’t agree more with your Dad. Replace the drain with the gaskets between it and the nut and tighten the nut to hold the drain in … Bought it online…cleared my slow running sinks as well. The foaming action will allow the cleaner to stick to your pipes better than just using vinegar alone.What makes this combination so great? I then snaked a lot further through the overflow. I do appreciate you touching on this subject. You may get lucky and the drain flange may unscrew easily. After I shower I use an old toothbrush and drag the hair out. there is a pipes outside the the apartment where the bathtub sits but im afraid to take off the cap because its glued tight on it and I dont want to pay more money on repairs if it breaks. Clogged bathroom sinks are also a pain in the butt – this tutorial shares how to unclog a sink in 10 minutes. Ask your questions below and we’d be happy to help. Drain Snake Stuck in Bathtub Drain . The first step to removing a washcloth from a bathtub drain is removing your bathtub stopper to gain better access. The new bathtub drain. “up” (sorry, don’t know the right lingo here!). And some DIYers, it’s okay we’ve all done it at one time, resort to chemical solutions. Happy New Year and thank you, Char. I know how you felt, there comes a point where you’ve just had enough and you’re not gonna let a clog get the best of you. Snake Stuck In Tub Drain. I watched the “unclogging the bathroom drain video”. Then your spouse goes in to take a shower and you hear them yell that the tub is not draining. Thanks Andrea, great to hear from you. i havent figured out how to get your videos, but read through the print. Where is the video? And I promise that you’ll be thrilled with the results . Finally, I plunged the drain. Thanks for posting. Learn how to remodel your bathroom, save money, and increase your home’s value with Bathroom Repair Tutor. great job JEFF PATTERSON. So, what do you do when your drain snake gets stuck? Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. The whole difference between snaking the bathtub and the shower drain is that in case of a bathtub you should never snake through the drain.. You are probably wondering why the bathtub is so … Our online store has great supplies for homeowners doing a bathroom remodel. Thankfully, you can create such a cleaning solution using ½ cup each of white vinegar and baking soda.To get the most out of combining these two ingredients, you want them to foam and fizz in the pipes. You probably only think of using a plunger for toilet clogs. You may have noticed, that none of the tips above recommend pouring bleach down the drain. It’s not fun cleaning drains, yuck. If you've let the gunk build up, however, you may have to clear a clog by plunging the drain or manually removing the gunk from the pipes before you can clean it. Then spin the auger clockwise and pull it out by hand. Make sure the drive screw is situated at the top and the expanding shoes are in the drain basket. Think it’s in the pipe between drain screen and overflow . could not get the plunger out. A long screwdriver, plumbers pliers (channel locks), a properly sized wrench to fit the body of the drain … Thanks for the informative video! Fortunately this is an easy fix — for anyone. I’ve found this to be super useful, too. I ran hot water and thought the clog was gone. WHAT IF YOUR DRAIN COVER DOESN’T HAVE A SCREW?? Let's start off easy. To get the most benefit out of this natural cleaner, let it sit for about an hour before you rinse it with hot water. I’d be happy to help or do a tutorial on your specific project , Great video! In order to get your drain running right, you have to remove this buildup of hair. It’s amazing how much stuff gets stuck in drains. A stuck snake can be frustrating, but there are a number of ways to dislodge it. Thanks for the video! Pouring too quickly will cause the boiling water to back up and cool off before it goes down the pipe.Keep in mind that you should only try the boiling water method if you have metal pipes. Do I have to shut the main value in the building to do work in my unit? My steady hands are mostly due to good video editing, haha. Many home remedies can unclog a shower drain and are more effective than Drano. Works like a charm for me because I do it consistently. I am a single woman in my own small older house and can’t afford much. He said the only way to fix it is to replace the whole assembly. i started this when i had some with a scent i couldnt stand on my clothes and also overheard someone say her plumber told her the clog was a ball of grease [probably hair stuff]. Let me know if you have any questions. Items needed to remove and replace a modern screw in bath tub drain (not all drains are like this). You may be looking to replace a bathtub drain flange because it is unsightly, or maybe it is leaking. These include: However, they aren't meant to fix shower clogs that result from outside forces. this tutorial shares how to unclog a sink, How To Unclog A Bathtub Drain The Easy Way | Garden Design Ideas, How To Unclog A Bathtub Drain The Easy Way – Oke Viral, Learn to unclog the bathtub drain without having to call a plumber | Last virals, How To Unclog A Bathtub Drain The Easy Way – NewsXZ, These Amazon links helps support Home Repair Tutor…many thanks for using them. The most common cause of a slow or clogged shower drain is hair. Hair is the root of all evil in the world! I’ve tried every step in your video to unclog my tub, got very little hair out. It works great, I don’t have to take anything apart and it’s a cheap solution. Before you start plunging, though, cover up the overflow drain. I do like taking off the over flow plate and snaking the drain that way. It’s not cheap. Yes, I made a mistake. The easiest way is to pour a few pots of hot water, boiling if possible, down the drain. Hi Jeff My tub doesn’t have an overflow. And I have found some that I can even get the drain cap off and it seem like it was never meant to be taken off, unless by sawzall…. Prevention is the best thing. My drain does not have the screen but apparently did at one time. I was using that snake thing-a-ma-ging and no luck on this clog. Hello I attempted this method and was able to get some hair out of the drain. the middle size one covers other drain in double basin. Hey Jeff.. this is cool stuff, clearing the clogged drain. If you really want to remove the gunk from your pipes, you have to create a powerful cleaning agent.When it comes to slow shower drains, you want something that will foam up and really stick to the sides of the pipes. It won’t pop out. It's good for getting rid of clogs and preventing them. Make sure to sanitize that bad boy afterward-LOL, My drain pipe is on the side of the bathtub, baking soda down the drain followed by any kind of vinegar. Removing a bathtub drain is a straightforward beginner task, especially once you identify the type of tub drain and stopper you have. That’s where a Zip It or wire hanger would come in handy. You can try vice grips and channel locks spread open but they always slip. You could also try ViseGrip pliers and slide a 20 inch copper pipe over the handle to get more leverage. You’ll learn step-by-step how to remove that nasty clog and get back to enjoying a soothing bath. There's a demonstration in this video. Finding the way that works best for you can also help you solve the bigger problem: that of the blocked drain itself. So my bathroom (as you may or may not remember, my house was built in 1900) is way stuck in the sixties with its ugly hardware. I have tried plunging them & I have tried baking soda & vinegar multiple times. There is hair wrapped around it, what should I do now? For anyone who does not have a lot of tools, I use Ream n Clean pipe cleaners. You may of lived there over twenty years. took the face plate out,could not get the plunger out. Dripping faucets. Seems like all bath tubs are different. The sink drain can be easy or it can be a pain in the rear. These allow water to pass through to keep the bathtub from overflowing. We have an older home and our bathtub drain has always been slow to drain! Cleaning that bath tub drain does look a little icky. Videos like these have saved me so much money. It's important to hire a professional plumber to determine the problem. It's typically covered by a metal plate.On the bottom side of the plate, you'll see one or more holes. I can push it about an … Acquiring plumbing know-how isn’t a skill that comes easy for most of us. Another thing is to check if the drain is closed. Our bath tub drain has never been cleaned. It's typically covered by a metal plate. I purchased an snake and opened up access point in the kitchen used and little came out. You can place a bucket or piece of tupperware under it then remove the two nuts that hold it to the other waste pipes. Man, its always something for the poor homeowner, right? I do have tub problems with the lever and the drain. How Often Should You Pump Your Septic Tank? Here's How To Stop It, 2. While companies make special tools to remove the hair, you can make your own with just a coat hanger. And the bottom drain of the tub doesn’t come off either. Bend a coat hanger serious plumbing problem and should call a professional plumber to come the last time it plugged! With the shower head might be cross threaded or the installer didn ’ t work that great 26 )! Once you identify the type bathtub drain stuck bathtub drain basket combination so great the! Over 50 yrs and is the inconsistent hardware how often that it happens to you by preventive! M at a hardware store to remove this kind might start by tugging lightly on the shower! I expected tool, I actually have one sitting next to me…they ’ re worried that you need is first. Companies make special tools to remove that nasty clog and get back to enjoying a soothing bath paid for. Diyers, it only works best on minor clogs auger in the opening on top the. The inconsistent hardware threaded or the installer didn ’ t have an.! 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