How to unblock a shower drain with a waste trap?

JackeeBoy

I heard that you are not supposed to use traditional drain cleaners with a trapper. My shower is backing up quite a lot and there is nothing in the trapper. Because of that, I put the drain cleaner down the bath sink hole as the bath was also clogging up a bit. Thing is, now the bath is fine and it's just the shower. Any tips?

Fire_Fox

What is a trapper? You heard from whom? Does 'traditional' refer to alkaline agents or enzyme-based or something else? What do you mean by "the both sink hole"?

southcoastrgi

Trapper :question:

JackeeBoy

Sorry, typos and the wrong lingo. I've edited my original post and what I meant to say was I poured drain cleaner down the bath drain hole.

In regards to the trapper, I meant the waste trap.

Fire_Fox

Fire_Fox wrote: »

What is a trapper? You heard from whom? Does 'traditional' refer to alkaline agents or enzyme-based or something else? What do you mean by "the both sink hole"?

JackeeBoy wrote: »

Sorry, typos and the wrong lingo. I've edited my original post and what I meant to say was I poured drain cleaner down the bath drain hole.

In regards to the trapper, I meant the waste trap.

Without answers to all the questions ... If you have a standard shower plumbing set-up, use a standard drain cleaner/ unblocker product as directed on the packaging.

shortcrust

My shower has a waste trap and I use this. Always does the trick.

https://www.homebase.co.uk/liquid-drain-unblocker_p908418

JackeeBoy

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Without answers to all the questions ... If you have a standard shower plumbing set-up, use a standard drain cleaner/ unblocker product as directed on the packaging.

I used Mr Muscle sink & drain gel and on the packaging it says "Do not use in toilets or sinks with waste disposal units".

Fire_Fox

JackeeBoy wrote: »

I used Mr Muscle sink & drain gel and on the packaging it says "Do not use in toilets or sinks with waste disposal units".

What does this have to do with your shower drain? What exactly is this "trapper"/ "waste trap" on your shower drain? Is it a "bottle waste trap"?

Or do you have an electric "waste disposal unit"? The ones I am familiar with are a toilet macerator (noisily chops up poop and tissue so they don't block a narrow pipe) or a unit under a smaller side kitchen sink (noisily chops up food waste). I cannot imagine why that would be linked to a shower drain .... but I am no plumbing expert.

If you type terminology into the Google search box with the quotation marks each end of the term (as I did in this post) hopefully we will all be talking the same lingo.

JackeeBoy

For Example.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Waste-Shower-Enclosure-Stone-Quality/dp/B01LWWEGFS/ref=mp_s_a_1_17?ie=UTF8&qid=1553876382&sr=8-17&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=Shower+trap

Ebe_Scrooge

JackeeBoy wrote: »

For Example.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Waste-Shower-Enclosure-Stone-Quality/dp/B01LWWEGFS/ref=mp_s_a_1_17?ie=UTF8&qid=1553876382&sr=8-17&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=Shower+trap

Ours is similar to that. The plastic insert in the middle is designed to catch most of the hairs, and should just pull out to allow you to clean it. But it's not 100% perfect, and in my experience you still get blockages. Any of the off-the-shelf drain cleaners, or good old-fashioned bog-standard caustic soda will do the trick. Just remove the chrome top part first, it's likely to get discoloured by the cleaning solution. In fact it's probably easier to remove both the top and the hair trap cage thingy - you can be giving those a good scrub with an old toothbrush whilst the drain cleaner is doing it's thing, get them nice and clean ready to put back on.

JackeeBoy

Thanks Scrooge. My main problem is that the cage is not coming out! It's just filled with water. Pouring any drain cleaner, it looks like most of it will simply spill over.