Unclog a Tub Drain With a Snake Without Removing Your Stopper

A bathtub drain can get clogged up pretty easily from a variety of things entering the drain over a period of time. Hair, dirt, soap, or the occasional foreign object can eventually cause your tub drain to form a clog which prevents water from draining as it should. This can be quite annoying when you are trying to take a shower and find yourself standing in inches of dirty water.

Depending on how often you use the shower, how many people are in the house, or especially how many people are in the house with long hair, you may have to clean your tub drain periodically.  There are a few simple tools that you can use yourself to fix your tub drain and you can even unclog a bathtub drain with a snake without removing your stopper. Most of the time when we think of using a snake, we think about snaking the drain through the drain hole, although most professional plumbers will snake a drain through the overflow hole to clean out a clogged tub drain. 

Remove Your Overflow Plate

Many obstructions in a bathtub drain can be dislodged manually through the overflow plate. The first thing to do without removing your tub stopper is to remove the tub overflow plate. This is easy enough to do with just a screwdriver. 

Now you can use a simple plastic drain snake that can be purchased at any hardware store and has little notches down the side that grab hair and debris to easily pull out of the drain. If you do not have a plastic drain snake, you can take a wire coat hanger and bend the end into a little hook to reach in and pull out any stuck hair. Pull out as much hair and foreign material as you can reach, and then flush the drain thoroughly with hot water.  

Most of the time this will do the trick, if you have a heavy-duty clog you may need to use an auger or a plumber snake which can also be purchased at any hardware store. Unclogging your drain yourself is pretty simple to do and there is usually no need to call in a professional plumber.

Installing a quality bathtub stopper with a drain cover helps to prevent excess hair and foreign material from entering your drain in the first place. Check out these quality bathtub stoppers made by Watco, a name recognized for high-quality tub drain products.

FixMyDrain.com is your one-stop for bathtub drain solutions with quality Watco tub drain products. The SimpliQuick® Tub Fix is one of the easiest tub stopper replacements available and you can even install it over a broken drain without removing the existing tub drain. Contact us to learn more and make sure your drain is covered with a quality tub stopper and drain cover.