On Mar 19, 1:26*pm, "Julie P." wrote:
Hi, my tub is clogged up. draining has gotten gradually worse over the
months to the point it brarely drains at all now and shower water is left
standing for days if i do not manually use a bucket to remove the water.

I have closet auger, the thin and long kind meant for sink pipes. the
problem is the spirally end of the auger (the part that is meant to hook
onto debris) will not fit into the tub drain opening since the house is very
old, and there is a strange horizontal metal bar going across the diameter
of the drain. so i can't even get the auger into the drain to begin with.
and drano isn't working.

thanks for any advice!

julie

A couple of options, well, three actually...

1 - I used to use one of these until I replaced my galvanized pipes
with PVC:

http://www.preparedness.com/homowsup.html

Very thin tube and the water jets blasted the debris down the drain.

2 - What kind of stopper do you have? Some drains have a stopper set-
up that is notorious for catching hair. I got fancy with a step-on
stopper when I replaced my tub, only to find that bars across the
bottom of the drain opening would constantly catch hair and had to be
taken apart and cleaned every few months. Drain cleaners just poured
right past it. I eventually replaced the drain with a standard pop-up
and haven't taken the tools out since.

3 - Where's the toilet? My tub connects to the stack just below the
toilet. More than once in the past,I have pulled the toilet and snaked
the tub trap by coming in from that direction since I couldn't get a
regular snake through the drain opening.