I once stuck my finger through what I thought was a bit of mushy soap and felt something wriggle back. That moment—half horror film, half plumbing reality check—happened in a Birmingham flat where the tenant had never lifted the shower grate in three years. The drain was hosting a grey, pulsing mass of hair, body grease and biofilm so thick the water took a full 90 seconds to disappear. By the time I’d finished, the bathroom smelled like a butcher’s bin in July and the landlord’s £8 call-out had snowballed into a £380 decontamination bill. One neglected 90 mm plastic grille turned into a hygiene hazard, a flooring repair and a lost tenancy. That’s why I start every job—whether I’m resetting a tap washer or rewiring an electric shower—by popping the drain and taking a look.
I’m Linda Taylor, Part-P certified and City & Guilds Level 3 in plumbing maintenance. Over the past eleven years I’ve pulled 1,400-plus shower drains across the West Midlands, from Victorian conversions in Moseley to new-builds in Solihull where the silicone hasn’t even cured. I log every job: the average blockage I clear weighs 140 g, roughly the mass of a smartphone, and 60 % of call-outs I make in year one of a tenant’s lease could be avoided with a £4 silicone hair catcher. Last winter I filmed inside a drain line with my Ridgid microReel and found a Lego Stormtrooper standing upright in the sludge—perfectly preserved, like a museum piece. That little helmet now sits on my van dashboard as a reminder that drains swallow everything, and what goes down rarely comes back up without a fight.
This guide focuses on proper installation for easier maintenance. For comprehensive installation procedures, see our complete shower drain installation guide.
Quick Steps:
1. Lift grate with flat screwdriver—protect the chrome with cloth.
2. Hook out visible hair with a £2.50 plastic drain stick (Poundland, 2025).
3. Flush 50 ml white vinegar followed by 30 g bicarb; wait 10 min.
4. Pour full kettle of hot water to melt soap scum.
5. Replace grate and snap in a hair catcher—OXO Good Grips, £9 at John Lewis.
Why Shower Drains Clog Faster Than Any Other Fixture
Kitchen sinks get the glory for blockages, but shower drains win on speed. The mix of 37 °C water, skin oil and sulphate-heavy shampoo creates sebum concrete inside the trap. A single person sheds 50–100 hairs daily; if ten rinse away in an eight-minute shower, that’s 3,650 hairs a year looking for a snag point. Add bar-soap talc and you’ve got mortar. I’ve cut open 40 mm solvent-weld pipes in Selly Oak student lets and found the diameter reduced to 8 mm—think drinking straw—within nine months. Plastic pipe is especially vulnerable because hair catches on the mould-release ridges manufacturers never bother to sand down. Metal waste lines in pre-1970 builds fare better; copper’s smooth bore gives debris less grip, but the soldered joints can’t handle modern acidic body washes. Either way, once the blockage starts, hydraulic pressure drops and the remaining water moves slower, giving the next shower’s contribution even more time to stick. It’s a feedback loop you can hear: that gloopy glug-glug when you kill the tap is the sound of a drain gasping through a straw.
Tools That Actually Work (and the Ones That Don’t)
Forget the £1.99 metal snake that coils back on itself and slices your palm. I carry a FlexiSnake Drain Weasel at £7—plastic wand with hook-and-loop tip that grabs hair like Velcro. For deeper clogs I slot the 5 m hand-spinner from Monument Tools (£24, Screwfix 2025) onto my cordless drill; 600 rpm chews through afro-textured hair without kinking. Chemical warriors swear by Mr Muscle Drain Unblocker at £4 a bottle, but high-foaming caustic soda can warp ABS plastic traps; I’ve replaced three this year where the bottom bowed out like a pregnant guppy. Enzyme cleaners such as HG Liquid Drain Unblocker (£9 for 500 ml) are kinder—safe for septic tanks and rubber seals—but you need patience: pour at bedtime, let the bugs eat for eight hours, flush in the morning. One client ignored the dwell time, showered straight away and washed £4 of enzymes into the sewer before they’d opened a single protein chain. Money, meet drain.
The Hidden Costs of a Slow Drain
A shower that takes two minutes to empty feels like a nuisance until you price the fallout. Water left standing attacks silicone joints; after 48 hours the seal swells and de-bonds, letting moisture wick into the wall. I resealed a tray in Hall Green where the plasterboard had turned to Weetabix—cost £180 for new cement board, £120 labour, plus £60 retiling. Worse, stagnant water breeds Sphingomonas and Methylobacterium, pink-orange bacteria that leave slug-trail biofilms on the tray. Tenants think it’s rust, scrub with bleach, breathe in aerosolised microbes and end up with coughs the GP blames on “damp asthma.” A £3 hair catcher would have nixed the whole chain. Landlords, note: Section 11 of the Landlord & Tenant Act 1985 requires you to keep waste systems in repair, but if a tenant’s negligence causes damage you can reclaim costs. I photograph every grate I lift; date-stamped evidence wins deposit disputes fast.
How Often Should You Clean It?
I operate a traffic-light system with clients. Green: water gone in under 20 s—clean quarterly. Amber: 20–40 s—monthly hook-out and enzyme flush. Red: standing water above ankle depth—immediate action. Families with long-haired teenagers hit red every six weeks; a retired couple with a water-softener can stay green for a year. The softener matters: calcium bonds hair into concrete, so Manchester’s hard-water postcodes clog 30 % quicker than Cornwall’s soft supply. If you dye hair, schedule a clean the same weekend; oxidising agents in peroxide open the hair cuticle and it tangles like Velcro on the trap studs. One gym instructor client went from flame-red to platinum in a week and created a mat so dense I lifted it out intact like a dead ferret. She now sets a phone reminder for the last Sunday of every month.
Step-by-Step Deep Clean for a First-Timer
1. Pop the grate. Most are held by a single centre screw; if it’s cheese-headed, use a wide-bladed screwdriver to avoid cam-out.
2. Photograph the cross-bar layout—some traps have anti-vac flaps that fall out.
3. Don nitrile gloves (hair dyes contain paraphenylenediamine, a skin sensitizer).
4. Feed the Drain Weasel 150 mm past the trap water-line, twist clockwise, pull slowly. Expect the first grab to look like a drowned hamster.
5. Drop grate and hair ball into a pedal bin lined with old newspaper—never the toilet or you’ll shift the problem downstream.
6. Pour 100 ml vinegar, sprinkle 50 g bicarb; enjoy the science-fair fizz for five minutes.
7. Boil a full kettle, add a squirt of washing-up liquid; pour slowly to melt grease without thermal-shocking the PVC.
8. Replace grate, then apply a pea-sized smear of silicone grease to the screw thread—stops it seizing before the next clean.
9. Snap in a hair catcher. I like the TubShroom Ultra (£12, Amazon) because the silicone skirt fits both 1½″ and 40 mm wastes and the colour range hides grime. For full photographic detail, see our step-by-step installation guide.
Safety Considerations and Legal Requirements
Working on waste pipes is low-risk, but if your shower tray sits above a live electrical junction (common in pumped wet-rooms) keep water away from the fused spur. BS 7671 Regulation 701.415 requires RCD protection on circuits in Zone 1; test the RCD quarterly with the integral button. If you unscrew the waste and smell sewer gas, stuff a damp rag in the pipe—hydrogen sulphide at 50 ppm can deaden your sense of smell and make you think the danger’s gone. For flats with shared stacks, never rod past the branch connection; you could disturb a neighbour’s seal and flood the downstairs cloakroom. That mistake cost one DIY-er £550 in laminate flooring and a very awkward apology hamper.
Warning: Caustic soda crystals → violent heat reaction → cracked acrylic tray → £300 replacement. Use enzyme or mechanical methods first.
Can I use Coca-Cola to clear a hair blockage?
The phosphoric acid is only 0.05 %—you’d need 20 litres to match one shot of vinegar. Save the Coke for rusting bolts in science class.
How much does a pro charge to unblock a shower?
My rate is £65 first hour, £35 each extra half-hour. Average hair clog takes 12 min; if you’ve chosen the right product recommendations beforehand, you might skip the call-out entirely.
Will shaving in the shower clog the drain?
Beard stubble is heavy and sinks, but it’s short. Rinse hot for 30 s after the final swipe; the particles flush through. Problems start when stubble meets existing hair—think gravel in a bird’s nest.
Are rubber hair catchers better than metal?
Metal screens look sleek but the micro-perforations clog in days. Medical-grade silicone (Oxo, TubShroom) flexes, so you can invert and flick debris straight into the bin without touching it.
Can I connect my washing-machine hose to the shower waste?
Only if the trap diameter is 50 mm minimum and you fit a condensate branch with air-gap. Shower traps are 40 mm and will siphon, letting sewer gas into the drum. I’ve seen mouldy laundry from that shortcut.
Is landlord or tenant responsible for a hair blockage?
If the tenancy agreement bans “foreign objects” and I extract a full head of dyed extensions, the tenant pays. Normal hair accumulation over time is fair wear, so landlord foots the bill—keep my invoice for tax records.
Final Word
A shower drain is the only plumbing component you stand on every single day yet never see. Ignore it and the bill multiplies like bacteria in a petri dish—because that’s literally what you’re growing. Spend two minutes this weekend lifting the grate, hooking the hair and flushing with vinegar. Your future self, your plumber and whoever inherits your bathroom will thank you. And if something wriggles back when you poke it, call me—my Stormtrooper needs a friend.