If your shower is not draining, the tray is filling around your feet, or the bath takes an age to empty, and you have already tried the plughole, call 07427 195142. A blocked shower drain is almost always hair and soap in the trap or the first length of waste pipe, but when it keeps coming back or other fittings are slow too, the cause is further along. We clear it, find out why, and test the flow before we go. For DIY steps first, see our guide to a blocked bath or shower drain.
Why is my shower drain blocked?
Hair is the main cause. It wraps around the trap and the grille, and soap, shampoo and conditioner bind it into a dense, slimy plug. Shower trays and wet-room formers have shallow traps with little room, so they choke faster than a bath. Grit from a sandy day out, plaster dust after building work and bits of packaging from new products can all add to it.
Why is my bath drain blocked?
Baths collect the same hair and soap, but the waste usually runs a longer distance under the floor or behind the panel before it reaches the soil pipe. That gives more places for the build-up to settle, particularly at bends and where the bath waste joins a basin or shower waste. A bath that drains slowly while the basin beside it is fine points to the bath trap or its own branch.
Gurgling shower drain
A gurgle as the tray empties means air is being pulled through the trap. Sometimes that is a partial blockage letting water through in fits and starts. Sometimes it is a vent problem in the soil stack, where another fitting draining pulls the water out of your shower trap and lets smells into the room. If the gurgling happens when a toilet or another fitting is used, the soil stack is worth checking.
How we clear a blocked shower or bath
We take the grille and trap apart where they are accessible and remove the plug of hair by hand, which is often all it needs. Where the blockage sits further down the waste, we use a hand auger or flexible tool along the pipe from the trap or an access point. If the bath waste has to be reached from behind the panel, we remove and refit it. Then we run the shower or fill and empty the bath to check it drains freely and the joints are dry.
If more than one fitting in the house is slow, or water rises in the shower when the toilet flushes, the blockage is in the shared waste or the drain outside, and we deal with it there. That is covered on our drain unblocking page.
Things that make it worse
Chemical drain cleaners can strip a slimy layer but rarely shift a hair plug, and the caustic liquid sits in the trap waiting for whoever opens it. Boiling water can soften the joints in plastic waste pipe. Repeatedly plunging a shower with a sealed former can push water out of a joint under the tray. If a plunger and cleaning the grille have not worked, it is time to have it looked at rather than reach for the bottle.
Keeping it clear
A simple hair catcher over the plughole stops most of it. Clean the grille weekly in a busy household, and run hot water through after using oils or thick conditioner. Shower trays in rented flats often block between tenancies, so landlords may want a check as part of a changeover.
Questions
Why is my shower not draining?
Usually hair and soap blocking the trap under the grille. If it is clear there, the blockage is in the waste pipe or shared drain beyond it.
How do I fix a gurgling shower drain?
Clean the trap first. If it still gurgles, especially when other fittings drain, the soil stack venting may be the issue and needs checking.
Why does water come up in my shower when I flush the toilet?
The shower and toilet share a waste or drain that is blocked further down. That needs clearing at the drain, not the shower.
Should I use drain cleaner on a blocked shower?
It rarely clears a hair plug and leaves caustic liquid in the trap. Clean the grille and trap, or call us if that does not work.
Do you clear blocked baths as well as showers?
Yes. Bath wastes block the same way, and we take off the panel where needed to reach the trap and refit it afterwards.