by Catherine Lear

Created on: January 09, 2010   Last Updated: March 10, 2011

There is nothing more frustrating than a bathtub that the bathwater will not runaway quickly, there is only two ways that the water that is in that bathtub wont drain properly.  The first way is that the drain has not been fitted properly. How can that be I hear you say, the pipe that connects to the bath seem to be there. However if the pipe is just level, then the water from your bathtub will drain away but it will drain much more slowly. The pipe fitted to your bathtub should be on a slight angle with the highest point fitted onto the bathtub so that the water flows freely down the pipe.

The second reason that your water seems to take longer to drain is the mucky mess that sooner rather than later congregates in the waste fitting called either the P trap or the S bend, it can also be called the bottle trap. These are fitted on to your bathtub just where the plug is situated, they are fitted for a reason, and the reason is that if you just fitted a length of pipe to your bath you would get the smell of your main drain coming back into your home.

The traps work by always having water in them thus making a barrier against all foul smells. However these are prone to getting blocked with quite a number of objects, all of us like a good old soak in the bathtub and most of us that do not have a separate shower will have a shower head incorporated into the bathtub so that we can either use the bathtub as a shower or so that we can wash our hair. Our hair falls out which we do not notice, but it does mostly when we shampoo or wash our hair and it is these strands of hair that is most likely to clog our drain. Or sometimes the soap that we wash with collects around the side of trap and a build up of this substance will clog the trap.

It is quite easy if not a little time consuming for the homeowner to unclog the drain them selves, and because the fittings will be made of plastic you won't need many tools; in fact you might not need any at all.

* To unclog your bathtub drain first take off the side of your bath, some modern bathtubs do not have a side, if yours does then you might have to unscrew a few screws.

* Now that you have, the side of you will see at the end where the plug is a funny shaped plastic fitting it will be connected to your bathtub plug and to the pipe that runs away from the bathtub.

* All you need to do is to disconnect the funny looking fitting from the pipe and the tub and clean the inside of it.

* To disconnect all you do is twist the large plastic nut that connects the bottom of the plug to the funny looking fitting that is called a trap, and then you twist the large nut connected to the pipe.

* Once you have disconnected two nuts the trap is now free and can be cleaned of all debris.

* Clean your trap with warm disinfected water in a bucket, you may want to soak your fitting in a bucket of powerful bleach for at least an hour, you will find by doing this the debris will be easy to clean from the trap. Once you have cleaned the trap then it is time to put back the trap to your bathtub, again this is quite easy just fit the trap back making sure that the two large nuts are water tight. Do not under any circumstance tighten the two nuts too hard, just tighten with your hand so that you cannot tighten any more.

Once you have fitted back the trap then test it with a small amount of water, check that there is no leaks where the two nuts are. If there is take it out again and clean where the rubber seals are and fit back, your fitting should now be water tight and your water once more running freely from your bathtub

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