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

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

Can we assume you have already tried some kinda toxic liquid drain
opener?

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.

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




I read a tip somewhere about using a length of steel cable as an auger.
That trick might have included
putting the cable into a power drill. Have you tried using a length of
malleable wire to see if you can
hook into the offending object? When my shower suddenly began to drain
slowly, it is what I used.
Careful not to use wire stiff enough to get stuck. I took out an
amazing glob of hair. Yuck! The
drain seemed fine one day, and very slow the next. Before I finished up
the project, I dropped one
of the screws for the drain cover down the drain. Hubby got a neat,
telescoping thingy with a magnet
to fish it out with. When I first began probing the drain, it seemed
like the wire went down too far and
hit something soft .... I was afraid that there was a hole in the pipe
and I was hitting dirt, but it was
just a mass of hair. Good luck.

Is the horizontal bar part of the stopper mechanism? Got an access
panel to get at it? That could be
what hair might hang onto.

On Mar 19, 12:26 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

You need to snake down the overflow. Take the two screws out that
hold the cover on, and pull out the "innards" if so equipped. Good
luck.

JK

In article [email protected],
"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

Take off that other gizmo, whatever it's called. The overflow plate.
(Sometimes has the mechanized plug lever attached.) That's the way to
feed a snake into a tub drain.

On Mar 22, 8:56*pm, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:
Get as much water out, as possible. (Turkey baster.) *Pour in a big
spaghetti pot of boiling water. Might loosen the grease.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
*www.lds.org
.

"Julie P." wrote in message

news:[email protected]...
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

Get as much water out, as possible. (Turkey baster.)

If she can't get a thin snake into the drain, how is she going to get
a turkey baster in there?

Might loosen the grease

It's a tub.