LESLIE: Walter in Pennsylvania is on the line with a slow-draining tub. Nothing is worse than that.
What’s going on, Walter?
WALTER: Tub was working fine one day and then, all of a sudden, we’re taking a shower and the water starts building up. So we let it out. I throw some Liquid Fire down in there, let it sit overnight like it says and nothing happened. And now, the tub just slow-drains and it’s really nasty. I tried Liquid-Plumr. I even bought one of those things where you can stick down into the tub and you supposedly pull out anything, which is like 1 or 2 feet long. But nothing seems to be working.
TOM: It means that wherever the obstruction is, it’s too far down the pipe for you to reach.
WALTER: Right.
TOM: So, I think you’ve done everything that you reasonably can do on your own. This line has to be snaked.
Now, you could do this yourself if you want to go out and buy a plumbing snake. And you might want to – they come in different lengths. I think up to about 25 feet I would consider a DIY length. Or you can hire a drain-cleaning company. But clearly, the drain has an obstruction in it that is beyond your reach with the products that you’ve used and with the small – I know what you mean by that very small snake.
WALTER: OK.
TOM: It’s good for cleaning hair out of drains but beyond that, not so much. But you’ve got to get to that obstruction.
The one other thing that you can try – but honestly, I don’t think it’s going to work in this place. In this case, I think you’ve done what you can. But sometimes, what I tell folks to try is to take a wet/dry vac and to put it over the drain and suck it up. So, basically, you’re going to pull whatever is in the drain up, back into the bathtub. And if there’s an obstruction, usually in the trap or right beyond the trap, it can grab it and pull it out.
The other risk, though, is it could just jam it in further and now it’s worse than ever.
WALTER: Yeah.
LESLIE: Or get it stuck a different way.
TOM: And because you’ve tried so many things and this has been going on for such a long time, I pretty think it’s beyond that trick of the trade. But I figured I’d mention it anyway. I’m afraid you’re going to need to hire a pro for this one, my friend.
WALTER: Going to have to hire a pro. Alrighty. That’s kind of what I didn’t want to do. Wanted to see if I could do it myself.
TOM: Yeah, well, I appreciate that and let you know that sometimes you’ve taken it as far as you can. And you’re just going to have to turn it over to the guys that have the tools and the training to get it done.
WALTER: Alright. I appreciate your call.
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