Plunger has caused standing water in shower!

[StrawberryJamSandwiches]

Hi all,

Not sure if anyone can advise but my shower has been emitting not so nice smells and started to drain slowly. I put some Buster down there about a week ago but it didn't seem to help. Today I bought a plunger and was actually excited to use it..... It has made the shower completely block and now the tray is full of water 😱😢 what should I doooo!? Please. 😊

All very good points, thank you everyone! Before I went to sleep I did scoop out the majority of the standing water and I have woken up to the very last bits drained, so shower tray is now empty. I'm torn between plunging again and sticking some unblocker down there; think I'll end up plunging again as I'll need to go out and buy some unblocker at some point today and might as well try the plunging in case that works on the meantime. Arghh, such a pain!

OK, so I tried plunging again, and on the second or third try I saw a black thing that I think was hair (oh god, please let it have been hair! 😱 🙏) I tried reaching for it but it was just impossible, so I carried out pouring bits of water and plunging. At first, the water was still staying above the drain, but now it is moving through, but the black thing can no longer be seen..... Is this a good thing and I have fixed it? When I say the water is flowing through now, I just mean with the bit from my jug, rather than the full shower. Shall I put the shower on and leave it running to see what happens!? Thank u so much everyone so far, I really appreciate all the input!

Would run water but keep an eye on it and stop if any more builds up.
If its full cleared then it will be obvious it's working, if you have dislodged the blockage you will flush it into the main drainage system and away never to be seen again

I would still get the mr muscle and let it sit before washing down with a kettle full of boiled water. I’m a cleaner and this has never failed me in clients houses. I always keep a good supply of mr muscle for this reason as people don’t clean their shower and sink drains so when I arrive at a new client there’s usually a slow draining plug hole somewhere.

Thanks both! I'll leave the shower to run for a bit, see what happens. On my travels today I'll pick up a bottle of that Mr Muscle as well, just in case. Thanks all

If water runs OK for a couple of minutes then blockage has almost certainly gone into main downpipe which takes all the waste including the toilet
This is much bigger than shower so if it has the big lump of hair in it now should be washed away.
Would advise putting a drain cleaner similar to Mr Muscle down occasionally.
There are numerous brands which are basically the same chemical but cheaper

£1 Drain Cleaner from Poundland

I found bleach cleared my shower drain better than the proper unblocker.

Hair, esp long hair is one of the worst things for clogging up showers. I keep a thin crochet hook (10p from charity shop) and once a week put it down the drain hole and wiggle around. You would be surprised what i get out. I also throw some washing soda down all my plugholes once a month and pour boiling water down.

We have a Tubshroom after a bad block which really helps with our style of plughole.

Quite scary to see how much hair you actually shed though!

Just be careful with a plunger - I had the same problem - the shower was draining - a little slowly - that's all. I used the plunger and unfortunately the pressure it generated pushed apart a push-together fitting which was above the ceiling in the utility room downstairs - the water from the drain just ran out on to the plaster ceiling and dripped out of a fluorescent light fitting - I had to cut a coupe of hand sized holes in the ceiling to try and find the joint - I'm lucky as I had photographs of when all this work was done (new extension) but had 2 joints that it might have been - as is always the case - with a 50/50 chance of guessing correctly - 90% of the time I guess wrong - the leak was at the 2nd possible location of the joint - once the hole was cut it was a simple matter of pushing the 2 parts together. I don't plunger the shower any more - just scrape the hair out of the trap below the drain hole every single time.

The only thing I might try is a stretchy coiled metal flexible curtain wire - the type you might use to hold up a net curtain.

We had a problem with shower drainage and kept putting drain cleaner down and it did nothing really, plunging wasn’t much help either. One morning I just used the plunger over and over and I heard a weird gurgle under the floor and it drained properly and never blocked again.

I think you need to keep plunging and cleaning it until it runs perfectly freely. You can also get a pump, which I think is better.

Rather than a caustic chemical, I'd use washing soda crystals. They will not burn a hole in your skin, clothes or eyeballs, and if you get a plumber in, he will not be injured if he has to take something apart and gets it on his skin.

You can pour them into the trap until it is full, then add just enough hot water to make them wet without flushing them away.

I have a feeling that this will be a shower in an additional bathroom installed after the house was built, the plumbing is often a bit bodged.

How old is the house, and how far away is the soil pipe that the shower waste drains into?

Wow @PigletJohn you are good! It would be an additional bathroom in a very old house conversion. I dont know how far the pipe is from the waste drains unfortunately. I don't want to damage anything, so before I put the Mr muscle down, should I not? 😂 Thank you so much for your response!

If you think it’s hair blocking it then stick some cheap hair removal cream down it and it should dissolve enough of the hair to clear the pipe.

I've gone for it, Mr muscle has been put down... I'm waiting 10 minutes before pouring some boiling water down (the kettle is already boiled now, so it won't quite be at boiling point) hopefully this will be the thing that really moves it!