Well, after clearing the drain trap of all that hair, of course. I used a plastic ear pick (because God knows that thing is going nowhere near my ear) to get at the hair. I tried to plumb deeper, but since my apartment is on the second floor, it hardly goes downward at all before going off parallel to the floor.
What should be my first moves?
Try a plunger. Be sure you’re pushing water and not air. Be vigorous.
When you use a plunger, make sure you are covering up the overflow holes that are…well, in my tub they are in the chrome plate around the lever that stops the tub.
If you don’t cover them, air will just woosh into the drain and out the holes. If you can’t find them, you’ll feel the air when you plunge.
I cover mine with a wet washcloth. Have to hold it with one hand and plunge with the other.
When that fails, I get whatever Drano recommends.
Regular bleach works well.
So with a plunger, how will I know if it does anything? When I next use it? Or is there another way I can tell?
I have one; I just barely use it.
Zip it is a lifesaver for me.
As much as I try to use implements to catch the hair before it goes down the drain, you can’t catch them all. My hair is really long and thick so I can get some pretty slow draining problems without this.
You can buy them at Home Depot for just a couple of bucks. It says to only use once but if it isn’t to gnarly you can just rinse it off and use it again.
A video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x_TtfTL4yo
Fascinating!
One of the Amazon reviews says it’s “difficult to find,” though. Is getting at Amazon the best bet, then?
Oh, and at 16" long, I assume that should be long enough to get to most problem areas? I have no idea where the stoppage is, really, or what the plumbing system in this place is like, internally.
I find it easier to cover overflow with duct tape!
I haven’t had a problem finding it at Target. I second Zip-It. That thing is amazing, if a bit disgusting.
If you can’t find a Zip-It, take a wire hanger (or one of those little flags utility companies sometimes leave around a job site), straighten it out and bend the very tip. Stick it down your drain as far as you can, twirl it around a few times and pull it out. It is by far the best way I’ve found to clean out a drain (tub or sink), and usually results in a disgusting hair snake.
There are multiple brands of liquid drain cleaners out there. I’ve used a few name brands and a grocery store no-name brand and they have all worked as intended.
The directions are basically the same: pour half the bottle into the drain, wait 15 minutes (or longer if you wish), and then rinse with hot water.
I have used this many times on my bathtub and sink after pulling out all the hair.
Put half a cup of salt mixed with half a cup of baking soda in and let it stand for a bit, and then flush with boiling water.
You can also use bleach. Like water, bleach gets much mroe aggressive when hot, so heat it up first and then pour it down the drain.
(note the best way to do this is to take a heat-resistant glass vessel and put the bleach in it, then put the vessel into a pot of water and heat it up on a burner. Don’t heat bleach in the microwave, and don’t try to heat it up in a stainless steel pot…hot bleach will actually corrode and pit the stainless steel.
Have you tried a pot full of boiling water? Try this for a few days and see if it doesn’t help. If not, then start spending money.
Pour 1 cup baking soda into drain, followed with a cup of hot vinegar. If your pipes are really clogged badly, may take a couple of rounds but it works.
For years, my wife and I dealt with a slow drain that we were certain was caused by a shampoo bottle cap stuck in our old porcelain bathtub. The drain did not have any sort of cover or external stopper. The internal stopper was non-functioning, and our plumber said it would be a costly fix, so we just continued using a cheap, but effective, rubber stopper.
At least twice, the backups during a shower got bad enough that we would call in the plumber to undo the clog. We mentioned the cap, but they never managed to get it out. It would be OK for a few months, and then inevitably start backing up again.
Finally, we’d had enough and got out our Shop-Vac. It got some stuff out, but didn’t seem to be working. Then I remembered the overflow hole. I covered that with the plunger to get a really good seal, then fired up the vacuum again.
Suddenly, I hear something clicking its way through the hose. I open up the vacuum and there is the cap that was the source of all our trouble. No problems after that.
I dealt with a slow draining tub upstairs for more than ten years. Gee, probably more like 15. I have long hair, and I figured it was my own fault. I just became accustomed to showering while standing in ankle deep water.
We renovated recently, and replaced the tub. During the process of moving the stopper mechanism from the old tub and onto the new one, our installer discovered that it had been installed upside down, thus was never completely open. We turned it the correct way, no problem after that.
Directly from an actual plumber: Clear, non-sudsing (i.e. plain) ammonia down the drain, let it sit for a few hours, (overnight is even better) and then follow up with hot water. Boil the water if your hot water heater is set on a lower, energy-saving setting.
Sorry to bump, but I had a couple of questions on the two methods at the top of my “try first” list:
The Zip-It: can it work with a drain that has one of those metal crosses as a drain trap?
Ammonia: how much?
I was fighting a slow drain along with ya, Leaper. I did everything everyone suggested, other than ammonia (I used Drano).
I got me a Zip-It, and found that I had a metal cross at the drain tap. Also, upon looking at it from underneath, my drain pipe was perpendicular to the bottom of the tub, then met up with the air vent, and then went down towards the trap.
Anyhoo, the Zip It went nowhere from the bottom drain. It made it to the join at the air vent and stopped.
If I tried to put it down the air vent instead, it wouldn’t have been long enough to reach the trap.
Glad I only bought one Zip It instead of a pack of 12 
Totally worked in my sink, tho.
After an $180 call to the plumber, the answer was a snake. He said there was no hair in the drain, just gunk (roomie uses lots of scummy soaps).
I asked him what kind of snake I could use to fix the issue in the future. He said I could get one for like $40 that attaches to a drill, or one for $120-180 that is its own unit.
Anyway, try the Zip It but don’t even bother from the drain. Go through the air vent. Be careful not to mess up the stopper if that’s where your stopper is.
If that doesn’t work, and ammonia doesn’t work, go for a snake.