It is one of the most dreaded home maintenance jobs of all time: cleaning hair out of the shower drain, or any drain for that matter. It seems that no matter what you do to prevent it, hair always finds a way to get down that drain and cause problems. From drainage issues to foul odors, cleaning the hair out of your drain is an essential task to keeping your drains flowing freely. Here are a few tips on how to clean out your shower drain.

Vinegar and Baking Soda

To start, you will want to gather your supplies. You will need:

  • dish soap
  • cleaning vinegar
  • baking soda
  • a clean, cup-style plunger.

First, squirt from dish soap down the drain to loosen up any soap scum or greasy buildup that may hold the hair clog in place. Then dump a generous amount of baking soda down the drain. Follow that with an equal amount of cleaning vinegar. The fizzy chemical reaction between the vinegar and baking soda with really loosen up the hair and clean the inside of your pipes as well. Let that sit and work its magic for at least 5 minutes.

While you are waiting, put some water on the stove to boil. Once the water starts to bubble, pour the now-boiling water down the drain. This will get the clog to start moving through the drain. Once you pour the water, it is time to use the plunger. With the basin’s water running, make sure that you have your plunger centered over your drain and start plunging. If your clog is especially well-stuck, you may need to repeat all these steps a few times to fully clear the drain.

Tweezers or Needle-Nose Pliers

Plunging the clog through the drain is a good option, but to really be sure you have cleared the drain, you will want to pull the clog out with tweezers or needle-nose pliers. In addition to your pliers you will also want a screwdriver. First, remove the drain stopper with the screwdriver. While you are here, you may as well give your stopper a good cleaning as well. It can be a source of bad odors as well. Then slowly and gently use the pliers to reach into the drain and pull out whatever hair and other debris you can get ahold of. An old, straightened out wire hanger works well as a makeshift drain snake to get any hard-to-reach clogs out of your drain. Once you are satisfied with your results, flush the drain with hot water and replace the drain stopper.

Zip-it

You may have seen these items in an infomercial or in the aisles at your local hardware store. A zip-it tool is a long, flexible piece of plastic with barbs on the sides that work much like a drain snake to grab ahold of the clog and pull it out. These tools are reusable but depending on the severity of the clog and the associated odor, you may opt to replace it instead. Fortunately, they are relatively inexpensive at only a few dollars. For best results, we recommend removing the drain stopper, though the tool is slender enough to fit through most stoppers, and twist or wiggle the zip-it around in the drain so that the barbs catch onto more of the hair strands.