How do I keep a bathroom drain clog-free?

Delta Faucet's guide to clearing clogs names the usual suspects: hair, soap and cleaning products that accumulate inside the pipe. In a shower or a bathroom sink, hair is the framework. Soap scum and oils are the glue that holds it together, and that combination forms a soft mat that grows every day. Delta also notes that a shower's strainer itself often accumulates "hair and soap scum as well," which means the first clog usually forms right at the surface.

Small solid items cause a different kind of clog. Cotton swabs, floss, bits of packaging and hair clips do not dissolve, and they catch hair as it goes by. A bathroom sink also has a stopper and a trap, two more places for debris to settle. Understanding where clogs form tells you where to look, and where prevention pays off most.

Five small habits do most of the work, and none of them takes more than a minute.

• Use a strainer on every drain. A fine-mesh strainer over a shower or tub drain catches hair before it enters the pipe. Empty it into the trash, not down the drain. Skip the rinse toward the drain.
• Brush hair before you shower. Loose strands go into the brush, not the pipe.
• Keep small items out. Cotton swabs, floss and plastic caps belong in the trash. See what not to put down the drain.
• Watch the flow. If the water takes a little longer to drain than it used to, clean now. Do not wait for a full clog.
• Run hot tap water for a minute after use. It carries soap film along. On plastic pipe, use hot tap water, not boiling water. AAA notes that boiling water can melt debris and create a second clog farther down, or cause pipes to expand and leak.

### How do I clean the parts that collect hair?

Do these every few weeks. They take a few minutes each.

The shower or tub strainer. Take the cover off with a screwdriver, as Delta describes, clean it thoroughly, and lift out any hair you can see. A hooked wire, the way Delta describes, reaches a little farther, but be careful not to push debris back down the drain.

The bathroom sink stopper. Hair wraps around the stopper and its rod. Kohler's steps for a pop-up drain: "unthread the rod nut, pull the ball rod out, and remove the stopper from the drain." Clean it with warm water and an old toothbrush, and rinse the drain body. Our pop-up stopper page has the full steps.

The trap. If a sink slows, AAA lists checking the P-trap as a standard step. Put a bucket under it, unfasten it, clear it and reattach it. Our slow-draining sink page shows how.

A hair tool. A plastic strip like a Zip-It, with a 25-inch flexible design and barbed hooks, is made for sinks, tubs and showers, according to its maker. Used every month or two, it clears hair before it becomes a clog. See our drain zip tool page.

A routine works better than good intentions, because clogs form on a schedule you cannot see. Pick one day a month, such as the first Saturday, and walk through the bathrooms in the same order every time.

Week to week. Empty the shower strainer into the trash after the last shower of the day, or whenever you see hair on it. It takes five seconds, and it is the single habit that keeps the most hair out of the pipe. Wipe the sink basin around the drain so soap film does not build up on the stopper.

Once a month. Pull the shower or tub strainer and check underneath it. Lift the sink stopper and look at the rod and the bottom of the stopper, since that is where hair collects first. Run a hair tool such as a Zip-It down each drain. Zip-It's own instructions describe a three-step process: insert the strip, pull it out slowly, and throw away what comes up. Finish with a minute of hot tap water.

Twice a year. Look under each sink. Check the P-trap for drips or a damp cabinet floor, and check that the slip nuts have not loosened. A damp spot is a reason to call a plumber before it is a leak, not after.

A monthly routine is also a good time to notice changes. A drain that gurgles, drains a little slower than it did last month, or holds a faint smell is telling you something. Catching it at this stage usually means a strainer cleaning, not a service call.

### Does the drain type change what I should do?

A little. The bathroom has three common drains, and each one collects debris differently.

Bathroom sink. The stopper and its linkage are the trouble spot. Kohler's guide to pop-up drains says to check the adjustable link and to move the linkage up or down to a different hole if the stopper does not seat correctly. A stopper that does not open fully restricts flow and catches hair on its edges, so a stopper that is adjusted properly clogs less. Our pop-up stopper page walks through it.

Shower. The strainer sits right on top of the drain, and hair mixes with body soap and shampoo. This is the drain that benefits most from a fine-mesh strainer that you empty daily. If your shower has a plain grate, a strainer that sits over it costs very little compared with a service call.

Tub. Many tubs have a lever or plunger stopper inside the overflow, and hair wraps around it out of sight. If a tub drains slowly, pull the stopper mechanism and clean it before assuming the drain line is blocked. Our bathtub won't drain page covers what to check.

It is tempting to pour a product down the drain on a schedule and forget about it. That approach has limits. Chemical cleaners are built to dissolve a blockage that is already there, not to maintain a drain, and Poison Control describes acidic and alkaline products that can burn skin on contact. AAA's guidance for unclogging a drain without chemicals starts with mechanical steps, such as a plunger, because a plunger "may be all you need" for a typical clog. The same thinking applies to prevention: catching hair before it goes down is safer and cheaper than dissolving it afterward.

If you do want a product on a schedule, an enzymatic maintenance product is the milder choice, and you should treat it as a supplement to the strainer, not a replacement for it.

### What about maintenance products?

Poison Control explains that drain cleaners come in two types. Enzymatic ones contain bacteria and enzymes, and non-enzymatic ones contain acidic or alkaline chemicals. If you want a product for maintenance, the enzymatic kind is the gentler option, and it is meant for regular light use, not for clearing a blocked drain. Read do enzyme drain cleaners work before you buy. Avoid caustic products. Poison Control notes that they can cause burns on contact, and our is Drano bad for pipes page covers what they do to pipes.

Baking soda and vinegar is a light-duty option as well. See baking soda and vinegar for what it can and cannot do.

If a clog returns within days, or several drains slow together, the cause is deeper. Read why the same drain keeps clogging. A bathroom drain that smells like sewage is a separate problem, covered on our bathroom drain smell page. If you have tried the habits and the same tub keeps filling, see bathtub won't drain.

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