Shower clogged up

[angelcakes95]

My shower has clogged up with what looks to be feaces. I am so grossed out I have only been here a week and this is my first time living alone so i’ve never had to call a plumber before. Can I please ask roughly how much it might take to fix this issue? I’m in scotland

Doesn't sound great.

I would want replace the entire shower head. It should really be a landlord job and technically you should check with them first.

But very easy to do on most showers. Watch the video.

I think you can get heads around £20.

Do you mean the showerhead or the plughole?

Do you rent or own your house?

Have the faeces been there since you moved in or are the new?

I had a problem with sewage coming up through my bath plug when I flushed the toilet and it was a fairly easy fix but I have no idea how much it cost.

Do you mean the plug or the head? If it’s the plug, get a plunger. It’s likely to be masses and masses of hair. It’s a grossly satisfying job to do.

If it is the plughole invest in a bottle of drain unblocker gel. They sell it in every supermarket. It works a treat on hair, grease and all the usual stuff that bungs up plugholes. The own brand ones are just as effective as the Mr Muscle one.

@Gingerkittykat It’s the drain 😩and i own

Get the Mr Muscle drain unblocker in the orange bottle and try leaving it overnight and then flushing with boiling water. It might not be a plumber job. My bath pipe used to get blocked all the time and this always sorted it.

It might be hair.

I have to de-clog mine regularly, the disgusting mess that comes out is truly horrific...

@FionnulaTheCooler thank you so much is it the max gel drain one? xx and how much did you use?

@Can2022getanyworse it really is so disgusting): i hope the drain unblocker fixes it

It’s unlikely (though not impossible) for it to be faeces. Probably a combination of hair, soap, and general dirt.
If you have a standard type of plug hole get a piece of wire, a coat hanger is good, and bend it into a little hook. Gently poke it down the plug hole and see what you can pull out. If you’re lucky it’ll be something that looks like a dead rat and is 90% hair.
Some shower drains have a hair trap in them. You might need to prise up a grate and pull out a piece of plastic to reveal the blockage.
Either way it’s probably not a job for a plumber. You can almost certainly sort it out yourself.

Likely to be hair , gross satisfaction pulling it all out ...... could be years worth ?
Also consider hotel rooms .... when your standing in the shower ! Does the house keeping include the plug holes ?

Have you taken the top of the waste off to clean the trap? I mean, lift off the top of the plughole and the little cup underneath. No drain unblocker will clear hair.

@Helenahandkart praying you’re right!! rn i can’t even use the shower because the water wont go down. do you think if it is hair it might also explain why my toilet also seemed to have an issue with blockage? idk if pipes were connected somehow

@NotMeNoNo noo i have been hesitant to go near anything incase i made things worse but will have no choice now

It might be hair , you can get drain snakes from Amazon for a couple of quid - I used one on our bath recently and I was disgusted by the hair

When I first moved into a house with a shower it drained really slowly. I tried to clean it with a plunger and with chemicals because I didn’t know that there was a trap underneath the grate. There was a huge load of hair in there. Once you work out how to open up the grate you need to repeat it every few months to keep it clear. Use a screwdriver or a knife to prise the grate up. Maybe post a picture of the drain so people can advise better.

The shower drain and toilet drain do indeed end up in the same waste/soil pipe in older homes. If you are getting faeces in your shower, then the blockage is quite far down. I’d call a plumber because they will likely need to check your sewer access point (usually outside) to determine if the blockage is in pipes the water company is responsible for, or pipes in the house- including the soil stack that you are responsible for. They might be able to snake a blockage.

My toilet goes into a 4” soil pipe, whereas the sink/shower drain into a separate smaller pipe. Both of the pipes eventually meet in a manhole outside. In my case it wouldn’t be possible for toilet waste to block the shower pipe. However your system might be different and have both pipes meeting in the soil pipe.
I imagine that the previous residents haven’t looked after the pipes very well and the two blockages are unrelated. Buy yourself a big toilet sized plunger and give the loo a plunge and see if that fixes the problem. If the previous resident put wet wipes etc down the loo then you may have a blockage somewhere.

Are you in a house or a flat? If it’s a house you may well have your own manhole where all the drains from your house join up. You should be able to look at the wall outside your bathroom and work out which pipes do what.
The toilet pipe (soil pipe) is vertical, 4” wide, and has an air vent at the top by the roof usually.
The shower pipe will be about 4cm across and may go into a hopper before entering a wider pipe on its way to the manhole.
If the two pipes remain separate until the manhole then it’s unlikely that the blockages are connected.
You can lift up the manhole cover to see if that is blocked.

It’s all pretty easy to do, but potentially gross. Wear rubber gloves. Do some YouTubing and see if you can work out which pipes do what. You’ll save yourself a lot of money in plumbers if you can familiarise yourself with the pipe work.
Good luck!

These are two graphics for older homes.

If you have a newer home the soil (toilet drain) stack is completely separate from the waste (everything else drain) stack. They’d then both link into the sewer from underground and outside.

If you have say a Victorian/Edwardian home, the plumbing is likely retrofitted and the soil stack is along your exterior wall. Back then everything that drained went into the same soil stack. So the blockage could be anywhere below where the two connect to the stack.

If you have say slightly more modern home, the soil stack is now interior as they were building houses with plumbing built in, but they still have waste and soil pipes running to it.

I don’t know which decade they separated and started having separate soil and waste stacks where these pipes don’t meet up until outside where the access point is or manhole when all your homes wastewater enters the sewer system.

Another thing you can check is the vent for the soil stack- these usually are at roof level. If the vent is blocked, the pipes won’t drain even if they are clear.

@angelcakes95 post a picture of your shower tray waste so you can be advised how the remove and clean the trap.

I suggest - a pic of the shower plughole, and a pic of any pipes the other side of the wall outside your house (if it's old enough they are in the outside).
Easy fixes - just the shower plughole blocked or toilet needs plunging. If it's further down the drains you should get a plumber, it's not for the faint hearted.

If you haven't got access to drain cleaner use bicarbonate of soda ( baking powder) 3 table spoons and later boiling water.

Show us the shower plughole as you could be able to clean it yourself. It could be a build up of hair and soap/shower gel. I need to clean mine out every couple of weeks

Mr Muscle is shite. This is 100% better... Domestos 500ml Sink and Pipe Unblocker | Wilko