Clogged Bathroom Drains

Using basic precautions can prevent most bathroom clogs from happening in the first place. Here are a few simple things you can do to avoid clogs in your toilet, shower, and sink:

• Don’t flush anything down the toilet besides toilet paper and human waste. Not even tissues!
• Place hair screens over shower and sink drain to prevent hair from washing into the pipes.
• At the first sign of a slow drain, rinse the pipe out with a kettle full of boiling water.

Clogged Tub and Shower Drains

Most tub and shower clogs are formed when hair gets caught inside the drain. The internal stopper mechanism tends to catch a lot of hair that gets rinsed down the drain. Hair accumulation will lead to water draining slowly and can prevent the stopper from fully closing the drain. To clean hair out of your tub or shower drain, remove the screen cover and the stopper. Then, use needle nose pliers or a bent coat hanger to pull out the gob of hair. If you’re still not satisfied with your drain’s performance, try pouring hot water down the drain to dissolve soap deposits and rinse away remaining hair.

Clogged Bathroom Sink

Bathroom sinks can become clogged by hair, beard trimmings, and soap scum. Sink clogs most often occur at the stopper mechanism or inside the P trap, which is the curved pipe under the drain. Disconnect the sink stopper, and then use pliers or a coat hanger to remove hair from the sink stopper just inside the drain opening. To clean out your P trap, use an adjustable pipe wrench to carefully remove the section of pipe, and then clean the debris out of it.