At Salmon Plumbing, we’re familiar with the stress of a clogged drain during a nice, hot shower.
We also know the frustration that can follow when wrestling with the mass of hair, soap scum and other gunk that’s blocking your water flow just isn’t working!
This is a pretty common problem, so we’ve decided to put together three proFISHional tips from the team at Salmon Plumbing to help you clear blocked drains and avoid any upset.
Alternate baking soda, vinegar and plunging
It’s often a surprise when our customers haven’t heard of this one – it’s in every mother’s homecare cookbook! Please note that baking soda may be helpful to unblock a shower drain but can cause build up – so, as always, if it doesn’t work the first time, call in your favourite Brisbane plumbers!
For this, you’ll need one cup of baking soda, one cup of vinegar, plenty of boiling water and a cup plunger.
Then you simply follow these steps:
- Pour a cup of baking soda down the drain.
- After that, pour a cup of vinegar down the drain (this should create a chemical reaction that will cause fizzing in your drain).
- Once the fizzing has died down, wait five minutes and boil some water.
- Next, pour the boiling water slowly down the drain.
- Finally, run some water down the drain and start plunging.
The baking soda and vinegar will break up any hair and gunk, and the boiling water helps to pass this waste through the drain, removing the blockage. The plunging ensures that the blockage is completely dislodged and out of your system. If the shower drain keeps getting blocked, then step back and call the plumber, there’s a bigger problem down there!
Remove the drain stopper and use pliers to extract the hair and gunk
This is certainly the hands-on approach most want to avoid, unfortunately, sometimes it’s necessary if your shower drain is very clogged. There’s nothing worse than dealing with a chunk of hair and soap scum, we feel you. But if you’re facing a “no showers” situation, get out the gloves!
For this, you’ll need a screwdriver, rubber gloves, a torch and needle-nose pliers.
Then, you simply follow these steps:
- Remove the shower grate from your drain, this is where you may need your screwdriver.
- Once you’ve got a clear opening to the drain below, shine your torch in it.
- You should see the hairy culprit sitting in the drain.
- Put the gloves on and use the needle-nose pliers to pull out the mass in your drain.
- After removing the gunk, run some hot water down the drain.
- Finally, reinstall the grate and ensure everything’s working properly.
Drain Cleaners – The Last Gasp
We know that a lot of people don’t like the supermarket drain cleaner option because of the chemicals that are often found in drain cleaners. We don’t really like them either as a lot of them can hurt our fishy brothers and sisters in the ocean!
Luckily, we’ve found a plumbing pipe cleaning product that contains no harsh chemicals. It’s called the CLR Power Plumber.
It essentially works the same way as a plunger, except without the mess!
To use it, run the water in your shower and allow some water to pool. Then, submerge the cap of the CLR Power Plumber can and place it over the drain opening. Then, press firmly down. This should expand the gas in the can and push the blockage down and out. Then Hey Presto – No more clogged shower drain!
Red flags your DIY shower drain cleaning isn’t working!
The problem with cleaning a shower drain pipe yourself is that a hair-clogged drain could be a bigger problem than first meets the eye. Hair tends to grab passing particles and can form large blockages in a relatively short time. If you try to clear your shower drain but the problem keeps coming back, you could be forcing hairballs deeper and deeper into your shower drainage pipe. If you clear the blockage you can see, get all the hair out of the drain and then it blocks again, do not keep attempting to unblock it yourself.
Get on the phone and call your local plumber to sort it out for you.
The team at Salmon Plumbing are available at our North Brisbane site around the clock to support the Brisbane region with their plumbing problems and enquiries.
If you need help, simply dial 07 3862 2600 at any hour of the day and our team will pick up the phone and organise the assistance you need.
For more at-home plumbing tips, or to learn about Australia’s plumbing history, click here to read the Salmon Plumbing blog.
