Author: Ed

A while ago the shower drain in our black bathroom stopped draining. I’d noticed that the adjacent (and upstream) toilet was sometimes flushing strangely, although we attributed this to our darling daughter’s habit of occasionally emitting an incredible pot-clogging ceramic turd. Perhaps she inherited that ability from me?

So I was prepared for the worst: an accumulation of, um, stuff, at the right-angle bend just downstream of the shower. My IR thermometer showed the heat from the shower water dropped off right around the bend, suggesting that the flow wasn’t so great. Tapping the cast-iron pipe wasn’t conclusive as it all pretty much sounds like it’s solid anyway… built to last a thousand years, as the saying goes, with hammered-lead joints.

The other bathroom had no problems and the pipes down there (some newer PVC from the tub & sink) were not full of drain water. So the stoppage was between the shower and those inlets.

The line has a convenient 3″ brass (!) cleanout plug upstream of the section in question, so if I got the plug out I could see the kitchen & black bathroom inlets, as well as the offending turn. Of course, the plug was firmly stuck and didn’t yield to main force (me hanging on the end of the mighty 3/4″ socket wrench handle), the application of penetrating sprays, or a brutal hammer-and-chisel assault.

So I biked off to Lowe’s for a pair (there’s a second cleanout plug far downstream and you just never know) of 3″ PVC plugs.

Returned home, deployed the 3″ hole saw, and drilled a neat hole in the middle of the brass plug. This being plumbing, a 3″ plug is actually 3-1/2″ OD and the saw left a 1/4″ ring with the threads. Another application of the chisel folded the ring in on itself and some wiggling pulled it free.

We’d used no upstream water so I didn’t expect much in the pipe but nothing came out to greet the saw. In fact, the pipe was clean & clear all the way around the bend, with only a nasty, slimy hairball hanging from the shower/sink drain inlet.

So it was just a glob in the shower drain, not the main line, after all. Sometimes I’m really glad to be proved wrong! Why the IR showed heat stopping at the bend I do not know, but it goes to show you never can tell.

Screwed a PVC plug in place, ran some water into the shower, deployed a Plumber’s Friend with a vigorous up-and-down motion, and after a few strangled hoosha-woogas the drain went BLORT and all the water exited as usual. I’m afraid to find out if the entire hairball is hanging in the main line, but I suppose I should take a peek.

Now, if I’d tried that before examining the inside of the big pipe, the first hoosha-wooga would have affixed a ceramic turd on the ceiling.

Depend on it!