Tub and Shower Drain Service

Purpose

A slow tub is a mechanical assembly problem at least as often as a stoppage, and the two look the same from the doorway. A hair pack above the shoe, a trip-lever plunger hung in the waste tee, a lift-and-turn stopper screwed down half a turn too far and a real restriction in the trap arm all present as "it drains slow." This standard puts a number on the complaint before anything is touched, then re-measures with the fixture back together, because the assembly is part of the flow path and a reading taken with it out proves nothing about the tub the customer uses. Without those numbers a partial clear gets called complete: better on the day, slow again inside a month, and the next visit starts from zero.

Scope

Covers a slow or stopped bathtub or shower drain in a house, an apartment, an office shower or a small gym, from arrival through a measured drawdown, the fixture assembly, cabling through the overflow to the trap arm, and a leak-tested close-out.

It does not cover clearing past the trap arm, which the drain cleaning service standard owns, nor camera work, nor jetting. A tub that backs up only when the laundry runs is a downstream pattern for that same standard. A slow tub on its third or fourth visit belongs to the recurring clog investigation SOP. Water in the ceiling below is a leak call.

Roles and the handoff

The handoff that fails is the tech who clears the hair, sees it improve, and closes without re-timing. Nobody can tell whether that tub left at four minutes or at ninety seconds.

Procedure

Measurement point for every drawdown below: cold water only, filled to 2 in above the tub bottom, stopper fully open, and at step 8, the waste and overflow fully assembled. A 5 ft tub holds roughly 13.5 gal at that depth, so the shop gate of 2 minutes is about 6.75 gal per minute, well under what a sound 1-1/2 in waste passes. Shop acceptance: 2 minutes or less, assembled, and no more than half the arrival time. Tune it to the tub and record what you used.

1. Ask what has been poured down it, and dilute before anything stirs the water. Agitation, not opening, is what liberates alkaline opener that has sat under a stopper for days. Acceptance: the answer in the customer's words, and on a yes or unknown, several volumes of clear water run through before a tool moves, face shield and chemical-resistant gauntlets on. Stop rule: an unlabeled container stops the job until the product is identified and its safety data sheet read, and no second product goes in on top of the first, since acid opener meeting bleach releases chlorine gas. Hazard: alkaline burns run deep before they hurt, so irrigate a splash for the duration the safety data sheet states, not until the sting stops.

2. Time the arrival drawdown at the measurement point and write the seconds down. This is the only number that makes the departure reading mean anything. Acceptance: fill depth, start, stop and a result in seconds on the ticket before any disassembly. Stop rule: a tub that will not hold 2 in because the stopper does not seal gets the water run in and released at the strainer instead, noted as such. Hazard: fill cold only, because a shower valve without pressure balancing can swing to scalding when a toilet flushes elsewhere in the house and your forearm is in the tub.

3. Run the lavatory and the toilet in the same group and watch the tub. A tub that rises when the toilet flushes is not a fixture problem. Acceptance: the pattern written as fixture-only, meaning no level change in the tub while the others run, or as downstream. Stop rule: a downstream pattern ends this procedure and routes to the drain cleaning service standard with no cable entering this tub, because clearing a branch that was never restricted bills the customer for the wrong work. Hazard: the fall risk here is a wet surround and wet tile, so a mat goes down before anyone leans over the rim.

4. Remove the stopper by its type and read the linkage before cleaning anything. Lift-and-turn and push-pull unscrew at the knob then the post, toe-touch unthreads at the cap, a trip-lever plunger comes out through the overflow plate. Acceptance: mechanism out, type named on the ticket, and for a trip lever the plunger's rest position read off the polish marks on the brass, which show where it has been riding. Stop rule: wear marks sitting in the waste tee rather than above it mean a permanent restriction, adjusted at step 8 whatever else you find. Hazard: the open overflow tube vents sewer gas into a small room, so run the exhaust fan and keep your face off the plate.

5. Clear the hair pack from above the shoe with a barbed zip tool, then re-time. Most tub complaints are a matted hair and soap mass in the first several inches. Acceptance: the tool coming out clean on two consecutive passes, and a re-timed drawdown in seconds. Stop rule: an improved but still failing time does not get reassembled and called done, it goes to step 6, because a partial clear is how this call becomes a callback. Hazard: withdrawing that mass drags biofilm and any residual opener to the opening as aerosol, so gloves and sealed goggles stay on, the withdrawal is slow and low in the tub, the fan runs, and nobody leans in to smell it.

6. Cable through the overflow to the trap arm, never through the strainer. The strainer crosspiece and the shoe's tight turn bind a cable; the overflow gives a straight shot into the tee. Acceptance: the head reaching the trap arm with the distance written down, what came back described in plain words, and a re-timed drawdown labeled "assembly out" - evidence only, since the customer uses the tub assembled. Stop rule: a hard stop surviving two working attempts routes to the drain cleaning standard for branch access rather than being forced, because forcing there breaks a slip joint you cannot see. Hazard: a corded motor beside standing water runs on ground-fault protection with the test button proved first, per 29 CFR 1926.404(b)(1) on construction work and 29 CFR 1910.304(b) in general industry, and the cable is fed with a gloved hand never wrapped in it.

7. Reassemble with new gaskets, set the linkage, and prove the joints that keep water out of the ceiling below. New shoe and overflow gaskets, slip nuts hand tight then a controlled turn with the tool, linkage adjusted so the plunger clears the waste tee when the lever is up. Acceptance: fill above the overflow inlet, hold 5 minutes, then a paper towel over the shoe, the overflow gasket and every slip joint, coming away dry. Stop rule: any damp reading means the joint comes apart and the gasket is replaced rather than the nut tightened further, because over-tightening splits the washer and the leak returns after you leave. Hazard: this puts the water barrier back under an occupied room and the towel check is the verification that it holds; if a fitting has to be solvent cemented, ventilate under the cement's safety data sheet and apply no heat to plastic pipe, since heated PVC releases hydrogen chloride.

8. Re-time assembled, then refill the trap and confirm the seal. Acceptance: the assembled drawdown at 2 minutes or less and at most half the arrival time, and a trap seal of not less than 2 in and not more than 4 in, which is IPC Section 1002 in the edition your jurisdiction has adopted, with the equivalent in the UPC trap chapter. Stop rule: a tub that passes the drawdown and stays odorous keeps the ticket open and routes to the drain odor investigation SOP, because a cleared drain and a broken trap seal are two faults. Hazard: odour is never the all-clear on sewer gas, since hydrogen sulfide deadens the sense of smell at concentrations that still injure, so a space that stops smelling bad is a reason to ventilate and leave.

When the site does not match this procedure

A drum trap. Older houses carry a cast or lead drum trap with a bolted lid under the floor. Do not cable it blind and do not put a wrench on a corroded lid over a finished ceiling. The lead owns it, and the conversation is replacement with a P-trap.

A lead bend or lead-caulked joint. Do not cut, grind, torch or wire-brush it, because those acts put lead into the air and onto hands. Lead work carries 29 CFR 1926.62 on construction work, with 29 CFR 1910.1025 as the general-industry counterpart. Cap the visit at diagnosis.

No access and a finished ceiling below. Nothing gets cut until the customer has agreed in writing to the opening and to who closes it.

A whirlpool or air tub. A pump and blower sit under the deck on their own circuit. Before the assembly is disturbed near them that circuit is opened and proved dead by a qualified person under 29 CFR 1910.333(b)(2), and if nobody on site is qualified that portion goes to an electrician.

The record this produces

• Arrival drawdown: fill depth, seconds, measurement point used
• Fixture pattern and which fixtures were run to establish it
• Chemical opener answer in the customer's words
• Stopper type, linkage condition, whether it was adjusted
• What came off the shoe and off the cable, at what distance
• Re-timed drawdown assembly-out and assembled, both in seconds
• Leak test hold duration and result at each joint, and parts replaced

Two numbers carry the file: arrival and departure seconds. A lead reading three tickets on one tub where departure creeps from 85 to 140 to 175 seconds is watching a line load up, which is a recurring-clog conversation rather than a fourth clearing.

Worked pass: second-floor hall bath, five foot steel tub

Intake: draining slow about two weeks, no opener poured, no other fixtures mentioned, access panel behind the closet wall.

• Step 1: no opener, only a plunger. Gloves and goggles, no face shield.
• Step 2: filled to 2 in cold, released, 400 seconds. 13.5 gal over 6.67 minutes is about 2.0 gal per minute, so it fails the 120 second gate.
• Step 3: lavatory and toilet run, no level change in the tub. Fixture-only.
• Step 4: trip-lever plunger drawn out through the overflow plate. Polish across the middle of the plunger body rather than at its top, which puts its open position inside the waste tee. Noted for step 7.
• Step 5: FAILED. Zip tool pulled a matted hair and soap mass out of the first several inches, two clean passes after. Re-timed at 190 seconds, which is 13.5 gal over 3.17 minutes, about 4.3 gal per minute. Better, still over the 120 second gate. Stop rule taken: not reassembled, on to step 6.
• Step 6: cabled through the overflow, firm resistance at about 3 ft, worked through, compacted hair and grease back on the head. Assembly-out re-time 85 seconds, or 13.5 gal over 1.42 minutes, about 9.5 gal per minute, recorded as evidence.
• Step 7: new shoe and overflow gaskets, slip nuts set, linkage shortened two turns so the plunger clears the waste tee. Filled above the overflow inlet, held 5 minutes, towel dry at the shoe, the overflow gasket and both slip joints.
• Step 8: assembled drawdown 95 seconds, about 8.5 gal per minute. Against the gate: 95 is under 120, and 95 against an arrival of 400 is 24 percent, well under the half-of-arrival criterion. Both met, trap refilled and holding, ticket closed.

The linkage is what would have been missed. Reassembling on the step 6 assembly-out reading would have put the tub back into service restricted by its own stopper, and it would read four minutes again by spring with nothing on file to prove it had ever been better.

References

• Safety data sheet for any chemical drain opener on site, which governs splash protection and irrigation duration
• IPC Section 1002 for trap seal depth, or the UPC trap chapter, in whichever edition your jurisdiction has adopted, since the numbering moves between editions
• 29 CFR 1926.404(b)(1) for ground-fault protection on construction work and 29 CFR 1910.304(b) for the general-industry branch-circuit requirements, with 29 CFR 1910.333(b)(2) for proving dead near an energized whirlpool circuit
• 29 CFR 1926.62 for lead exposure on construction work, with 29 CFR 1910.1025 as the general-industry counterpart
• See related: the drain cleaning service standard, the recurring clog investigation SOP, and the drain odor complaint investigation SOP