Help! Shower suddenly not draining

[lazyakita]

I'll try to be brief! We moved into a new house recently and the shower has worked normally. We had a fan and some lights replaced yesterday, showered after and no issues. I just had a 3 minute shower and it suddenly isn't draining at all! I've tried to mop up excess but it's too much to get rid of. I can't remove the trap, it seems sealed in somehow? I do have a bottle of drain unblocker but all I'd be doing is pouring it into a puddle of water :( Please help! Photo of drain attached.

Have you got plunger?

@LIZS Thank you. I've tried two and it has made no difference. I've scooped out as much as possible with a mug but it's not going down the drain at all. Sink next to shower drains fine!

Get some long pipe cleaners down there. So satisfying.

Yes, try the drain rod. It will be lots of hair tangled in there!

@WhatsAppening I don't have any... any substitutes I could try?

Sorry I seem so stressed, moving into this house nearly killed us in terms of stress and things just keep going wrong as soon as I feel I'm getting to grips with life.

Hair....I once had someone out for this £50 later and 2 plunges feom the longest handled plunger I have ever seen and lots and lots of hair later and it's been fine for well over 5 years.

I have a long pipe cleaner, Cost a quid from Tesco it’s a narrow coil of wire that spreads out towards the end so you can screw it into a blockage and pull it out. Brilliant for showers and the awkward side bit of a Belfast sink.

Buy one at B&Q tomorrow OP. They are quite cheap, and you get to keep the staff forever!
As you have drain cleaner, you can try taking as much water as possible with a towell/ cloth, and then leave the drain cleaner overnight. But it has to be bathroom one, as it is designed to break down hair. It will work its way down the drain, and if the blockage is near the plug, it will get there.

It's almost certainly blocked by hair. A long metal stick might do the trick - we have some thin ones about 30cm /12 inches long that are actually for kebabs - one of them is now used solely for drain unblocking.
And then keep on going with the plunger! One problem is that the plunger has to cover the hole completely or you won't be creating a vacuum, and that's what ultimately unblocks the drain. So if the plunger is too small you might need to block the exposed bits around the edges with old cloths.

Hi all. Thank you very much. I kept trying the plunger and eventually most water has gone. I have put the drain unblocker down but it's just sort of sitting on top of the drain currently. There's added jeopardy because our shower is over the neighbour's hall and when we first met him one of the first sentences he uttered was "15 years ago the previous owner's shower flooded my hall."

Unravel a wire coathanger.

www.amazon.co.uk/Drain-Weasel-Plughole-Cleaning-Brush/dp/B00E1LAZZY?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

This or some similar will hoick out any gunk that’s down the plug hole

Also use the plunger on the other drains in the bathroom.

They will all meet at some point and occasionally I find I get a sort of air bubble and something will gurgle and then it all drains!

Are you sure that cover won't come off? I bet it does

Please dont start plunging if you have drain unblocked sitting on the surface.
It's really nasty stuff, and if it splashes into your eyes could really cause sone damage. Just leave it be for a while, and let it hopefully do its stuff.

Look up the brand name on it and how to remove the cover

There are loads of videos about it

You'll be able to clean it out yourself

Our cover like that is a very very snug fit but does lift off and then there is a sealed trap system to clean out.

Blunt knife around the edges then try lift off. Or thread something through 2 lots of holes and lift hard.

Actually you can see the trap underneath

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate it. Don't worry, I wouldn't use the plunger with the drain unblocker sitting there (not without gloves and goggles, anyway!) The water has finally gone and I've put the rest of the bottle down to sit over night. I'm buying one of those drain rods as we speak! The previous owner had daughters with long hair so that might be it. I'll also try removing the cover tomorrow as suggested. I tried prying it off with a screwdriver earlier but no luck! Really hope it's not an ongoing issue. It's just so weird that it was fine yesterday, then wouldn't drain at all this evening Thanks again for the support while I had a meltdown.

I think ours got a bit of grout stuck around it. After the first time I got it off it was easy after that.

The middles bit twists out and you can clean all hair and gunk from it.

www.mbd-bathrooms.co.uk/wet-room-aco-round-shower-gully-for-vinyl-floor-acogro?gclid=Cj0KCQjwqKuKBhCxARIsACf4XuGJ24ByrdB213sIze2xylsaDfAn33Qq2WlO8n56yNuQhXZHUkFUvPoaAqy5EALw_wcB

Beware because it's air tight ours always stinks 😷

Thanks @RandomMess! I'll hold my nose when I eventually access it.

Now I have a new issue... the old bathroom fan, which never worked but is built so far into the ceiling that it can't be removed without major work, is turning itself on every 15 minutes for two minutes and buzzing so loudly. It just started tonight after I had the shower that resulted in this thread. At least, I think it's the old fan. I'm just really tired of dealing with it all :(

There must be an isolator switch for the fan?

@MrsPelligrinoPetrichor It's a really old house that has some very outdated work done to it. The old fan is buried so far up inside a lowered ceiling that we couldn't remove it without destroying the ceiling, but as it wasn't working at all, we were recommended to fit a low voltage fan at the opening on the ceiling to remove humidity and ignore the old fan. 24 hours later what I believe to be the old fan has started buzzing madly every so often. The isolator switch is a dimmer switch which currently operates the new fan but does nothing to start or stop the old one which we all thought was completely defunct. It's buzzing again now so loud and driving me nuts. My OH is working downstairs and it's going to stress him out so much when he comes to bed. I would really like a break from all of this, I can feel my blood pressure rising constantly. Sorry to complain so much, I'm just feeling really down.

It's shit moving and everything going wrong, I remember it well!

@MrsPelligrinoPetrichor It certainly is!!

Turns out the noise was a macerator pump failing. Flooded our neighbours with stinky water. Sigh.