The shower drain is up to its old tricks again. This time instead of plungering the drain I decided to take the U-bend off to see if there was an ongoing blockage in it. Not sure why I chose this course of action but in retrospect bringing out the plunger first might have been a better idea.
The U-bend is easily accessible, as it is located in the unboarded roof of the cupboard that the fridge sits in. The drainward joint unscrewed no problem but the upstream one felt like it was attached with a liberal coating of treacle. When it came off it appeared that it had been slathered in silicone sealant.
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| Bodged connection to shower tray |
The U-bend was pretty clean, no doubt an effect of the energetic plunger action I had applied previously, so no problem there. The receiving pipe, however, had a 'dead mouse' of matted long hair wrapped round the 90o bend that lies after the trap (I'll spare you the pictures). I extracted this and refitted the U-bend.
On reassembly the reason for the silicone sealant became obvious. The top joint of the U-bend had been damaged at some point so it was not forming any sort of a seal and the silicone had been put into to bodge the joint. Without the silicone the range of the shower extended from the bathroom into the fridge cupboard.
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| Damaged seal on bath trap |
Time for a new part (40mm bath trap) from our very local plumbing supplies company. Reinstallation was easier as the silicone had been removed but the joint was still weeping a bit, probably because of a slight mismatch between the thread sizes of the PVC pipe and the metal shower outlet. A bit of PTFE tape solved this problem.
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| Repaired bath trap |
JOB DONE.
Time taken : 45 mins hands on
Cost : £5.48 for replacement bath trap
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