I am at a loss as to what to do with this and hope you might have some ideas. We purchased an older home (1950s build) and the bathtub has never really drained properly. It will fill the tub during a short shower. I have completely removed the trap and checked for any obstructions at the start of the tub and there are none. I even turned on the water while the trap was not connected and water flowed freely. Then, I snaked all the piping from the trap to the main header - no obstructions. Then, I even went on the roof and checked all the vents and there doesn't seem to be any obstructions in the vents either. Any other ideas??

Hi Crapshoot

In my experience you are sometimes best to snake through the overflow (and hence through the trap) while everything is connected if possible. In this way, you can keep 2 inches of water in the tub while you snake the drain and then when you see the water start to bobble or start to drain faster you know you are in the area where the actual blockage is... make sense?

Either way you do this (trap on or off... and you may want to do BOTH ways) you need to be clear on the fact that older pipes are choked down so much that you need to snake the drain back and forth, back and forth numerous times... working the snake particularly hard at the junction where the drain pipe meets the larger pipes (or when water in the tub indicates it is necessary). You also want to wash the drain down with hot water, especially when you start to see some flow... push the crap out of the small drain and into the larger pipe or it will just fall back in on itself, OK?

Hope that helped some!

Mark

Mark,

That's some good advice, and I've tried that as well. I actually took apart the entire trap and didn't see a thing. Plus, I detached the trap and had my daughter turn the water on and the water came shooting out. I don't think that it's a clog, because I then snaked all the rest of the piping and never came across a single blockage and didn't see anything on 25 feet of snake. I'm starting to think that this is a venting issue like the vent is blocked. I didn't reach the bottom of the vent (too deep for my snake) when I tried to check it. And there is a gurgling sound when the tub finishes draining. It takes about 10 minutes to drain a half filled tub. Any thoughts?

Rob

Also, I regularly hear gurgling coming from the tub when other things drain like the kitchen sink, the dishwasher, etc.

Also just ran a number of different sinks for a bit, shut them off and then heard gurgling in the same tub drain.

Certainly sounds like a vent contributing to the issue, but a clogged vent would not cause your tub to "fill up" when showering as the tub waste overflow can act as a vent in its own right, so I still think the drain is clogged and you are just snaking through it instead of removing it... ;)

Try some type of drain cleaner, I agree with massplumber2008 on this one.. rdn I have had a simialr problem in my house and it was a blockage at the septic tank... a half of tube of water is a lot and will fill your pipes quick! Not like a sink, it a small amount of water that would go down and not fill the pipes,, makes sense to me... rdn

Thanks, everyone. Everything you guys are saying makes sense and that's why I'm so confused by the snake not pulling anything out or hitting any blockages. Is it possible that it's a blockage in the main header? My next plan was to go through the header clean out. I'll let everyone know what I find.

My thoughts exactly! I got to thinking this could be a problem in the larger drain pipe. Give it a shot, but you probably need a larger drain machine!

Skip the chemicals (drain cleaners) they only work on TV and can be very dangerous.