I feel like an idiot for not knowing about these.
Every 2-3 months I have to snake out our shower drain with a 25’ snake. Giant PITA.
After some web searches, I stumbled across these hair trap devices. They come in both external and internal configurations. Many different types to choose from.
I purchased an internal one, installed it, and am going to give it a try. In theory I can just pop it out and clean it instead of snaking the pipes. Folks tell me they work well. If this one doesn’t work I’ll try another type. They are fairly inexpensive.
Lye crystals will also dissolve that hair in seconds. The plumbing in our place was poorly designed, too many tight bends. We have to use it every so often. It actually works better than the snake and takes a tiny fraction of the effort.
This may not work for everyone, but I pull what hair I can out as I wash it and slap it on the walls. Then I swirl it up to throw away after. I hardly ever have to snake it back out, maybe once every few years.
Word of warning: they tend to trap more than hair. If you have a teenage boy in the house you’ll find out real quick what I mean.
As a former teenage boy, sometimes it’s really just soap and soap scum and dirt and whatever else caught in the hair rather than anything else.
Also, for anyone caught in a sticky situation, cold water to keep the proteins from denaturing and getting sticky in the first place, and if all else fails use shampoo to try to emulsify it to stick to the water instead of the floor, to make little sewer babies with your neighbors.
Hair traps are how poachers catch wild toupees to sell on the bald market.
My house has an OLD sewer connection. Gotta snake the tubs and sinks(and formerly the kitchen sink and washer connections) so often that I used a hole-saw to remove the cross-shaped bits that would normally hold a plug(and catch a bit of hair).
You’ll never guess what never comes out(any more) with our 50ft, 1/2-inch drain auger; Hair. Waxy stuff? Check. Black Goo? Check. Fricken YARN/threads from the washing machine on the other end of the house? Check. We’ve somehow got it down to where only the tubs need snaked regularly, but still, no hair any more.
I thought the whole house was sharing a 1.5-inch(okay, two inch) connection, then a few months back when there was flooding nearby, this bastard swam up our toilet:
Figure he needed at least a three inch pipe to get through without just getting stuck.
What a cutie. I’m glad I get to see him via a photo though, and not in the toilet bowl when I’m trying to pee — that must have startled whoever found him
Not gonna lie, he scared the bejeezus outta me. Like, I just happened to look before I would have sat down. Animal-enamas-and-even-vaguely-adjacent-experiences rank damn near the top of my NO THANK YOU list.
There’s a creek across the alley, but its also on the other side of a neighbor’s property. I was never concerned at where he came from or how, just surprised he made the trip unscathed.
