Service
Bathtub Drain Cleaning
Clearing slow and blocked bath wastes, including the overflow assembly and trip lever mechanism where hair and residue commonly collect.
- Licensed and insured
- Price agreed before work
- A plumber who works your area
The blockage is usually behind the overflow
Bath wastes catch people out because the obvious opening is the wrong place to look.
Behind the overflow plate at the end of the bath sits the linkage that operates the stopper. Hair wraps around it, out of sight, and builds up there. Probing at the plughole reaches none of it.
Taking the overflow plate off and withdrawing the assembly brings the accumulation out with it. That is the difference between a bath that drains properly afterwards and one that is slow again in a month.
Slow drain or maladjusted stopper
The two are easy to confuse because they produce the same symptom.
If the trip lever mechanism has slipped out of adjustment, the stopper never opens fully. The bath then empties through a partly closed outlet, which looks exactly like a restricted waste.
The test is simple enough: with the assembly removed entirely, does the bath drain normally. If it does, nothing is blocked and the linkage needs adjusting, which costs nothing in parts and is a great deal cheaper than clearing a drain that was never blocked.
Does this sound familiar?
Problems this service solves
- A bath that takes a long time to empty
- Water draining away only partly
- A stopper that will not seal or will not lift
- Odour from the bath waste
- A bath that backs up when a nearby fixture drains
Signs you need bathtub drain cleaning
If more than one of these is true, the problem is usually past the point a plunger or a store-bought cleaner will fix.
- The bath empties far slower than it fills
- The trip lever feels loose or does nothing
- Hair is visible around the stopper
- Water level drops in steps rather than steadily
What to expect
How the visit works
Remove the stopper assembly
Bath wastes hide their blockage in the linkage behind the overflow plate as often as at the plughole, and it cannot be reached without taking the assembly out.
Clear the waste and overflow
Both are cleared, because the overflow shares the trap and material collects in it unnoticed.
Check the linkage
A trip lever mechanism that has slipped out of adjustment mimics a blockage: the stopper never fully opens and the bath drains slowly.
Test a full bath
The bath is filled and released, since a partly restricted waste copes with a shallow drain and fails on a full one.
What's included
What you get on every job, whoever we send.
- The overflow and linkage checked, not just the plughole
- Adjustment problems distinguished from real blockages
- The full assembly cleared rather than probed through
- Tested by emptying a full bath, not a token amount
Questions
Bathtub Drain Cleaning questions
My bath drains slowly but I cannot see any blockage. Where is it?
Usually in the linkage behind the overflow plate rather than at the plughole. Bath wastes have a stopper mechanism connected to the trip lever, and hair collects around it out of sight. Taking the overflow plate off and withdrawing the assembly brings the blockage out with it. That is why probing at the plughole often achieves nothing.
The stopper will not seal properly. Is that the same problem?
Related but different. A stopper that will not seal, or will not lift clear, is usually a linkage out of adjustment rather than a blockage, and the same mechanism causes both symptoms. If the stopper never opens fully, the bath drains slowly and it looks exactly like a blocked waste. Adjusting the linkage is the fix and it costs nothing in parts.
Should I pour drain cleaner into a slow bath?
It is a poor choice here in particular. A bath that drains slowly is usually holding standing water over the blockage, which dilutes the product and leaves it sitting against the waste and the trap for a long period. Older metal wastes and seals do not tolerate that well. Removing the assembly and taking the hair out physically is quicker and does not risk the fittings.
Related services
Bathroom Drain Cleaning
Clearing basin, bath and shower wastes blocked by hair and soap residue, including the shared branch where several bathroom fixtures drain together.
See what this coversBathtub Drain Repair
Repairing bath waste assemblies, including plugs that will not seal, corroded waste bodies and the linkage that connects the overflow to the drain.
See what this coversClogged Drain Repair
Clearing blocked drains at any fixture, and establishing whether the blockage is local to that trap or somewhere in the shared line downstream.
See what this coversWater Heater Repair
Diagnosis and repair of gas, electric and tankless water heaters, including no-hot-water calls, leaks, pilot problems and sediment flushing.
See what this covers
Get it fixed
Bathtub Drain Cleaning, handled locally
Call with your ZIP code and what you are seeing. We route you to a licensed plumber in your area who does bathtub drain cleaning every week.
- Licensed and insured
- Answered 24/7
- Price before work