Nothing is more frustrating than drawing up a warm shower, only to find that your shower or tub drains extremely slowly due to a clog in the drain. Hair clogs are some of the most common culprits behind this, so here a few tips to help keep your shower and tub drains hair-free.
Pull Up Any Drain Debris Once a Week
This is a preventative measure that takes only seconds of your time each week but has the potential of preventing hours of work and frustration over a clogged drain in the future. For the most hygienic approach, use a bent wire or the end of a wire hanger to pull up any hair the may have gotten caught in your shower drain.
Purchase a Hair Catcher
These are very affordable and are great for keeping hair from clogging your pipes. Some will look like a miniature form of a kitchen strainer and will sit right in the shower drain, while others are slightly more elaborate in design. There are also “peel and stick” varieties available that will sit flush against the shower drain opening. Opting for one of these does, however, mean that you’ll need to clean the drain catcher fairly frequently in order to ensure proper drainage in your shower or tub.
Finding one of these to fit your drain can be tricky, especially if your shower or bath tub drain has a built-in spring-loaded stopper. In that case, you would need to either unscrew the stopper and replace it with a strainer for the drain, or invert a suitably sized hair catcher to fit over the drain.
Flush the Drain Once a Month
There are multiple ways of doing this, but hot water and bleach are both great, easy options for helping keep your pipes clear. If opting for hot water, be sure that the water is hot but not boiling—water that is too hot (as in, over 140 degrees Fahrenheit) has the potential of damaging non-metal pipes. You will also want to use a good amount of water for this—a large pot’s worth of water should be enough. Then follow up by flushing the drain with warm water for a few minutes. If opting for bleach, simply pour a cup of bleach down the drain before bedtime and follow up in the morning by flushing the drain thoroughly with warm water. Whichever method you go with, aim for flushing your drains around once a month.
Brush Your Hair Thoroughly Before a Shower
This helps remove loose hair that would otherwise be falling out naturally during the shampoo process. Loose hair does much less damage in a hairbrush or trash can than it does in a clogged shower drain.
