Concern about shower drain

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chessimprov

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Hi, I have a concern that a shower drain might be slowing building up. I have one of those showers you just stand in. It is not like a tub with a stopper. When I open up the drain, I clean what I can, but I fear that the water might get stagnant or smelly. Any ideas? Thank you.


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Smooky

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It looks clean and if it is only water in the drain, it will not get smelly. If you never use the shower, the water in the trap might dry up and then it could get smelly.
 

Jadnashua

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How deep is the water to the trap? The water in the trap gets flushed every time you use the shower. That water stops sewer gasses from getting into the room. But, anything stuck to the sides of the pipe above the trap can smell. Ideally, the trap is not very deep, so not much pipe is exposed. Most of the stuff gets flushed, so, depending on the type of soap, shampoo, or conditioners you use, those are thing majority of things that tend to build up on the walls, and then, often slowly. Most people never have an issue and never clean the pipe.
 

chessimprov

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I have no idea how deep the trap is. It would make sense the trap is not that deep since someone else would live underneath. Thank you.
 

Jadnashua

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The top of the trap is where the water level is. The deeper that is, the more pipe that's exposed.
 

Maxwelhse

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I have an obvious dumb question...

IS the water getting stagnant or smelly or do you just fear that it might become that way?

I have a long history of plugged shower drains (literally every place I've ever lived when I first moved in... I'm up to shower #9 now and have had to fix them all in one way or another) and never once has any of them been a problem unless they failed to drain water or were installed improperly without a trap.

So... If it doesn't smell and is draining water, your work here is done.
 

chessimprov

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I'm guessing there is about a foot left in the drain, and I don't know how deep it goes. It looks like it goes "deep". I thought it did smell one time, but that smell seems to have went away ever since, so most likely it was from something else prior. I also do have a bad sense of smell though too :/
 

Jadnashua

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The vast majority of water that goes down a shower drain is pretty clean. While you're rinsing off, the soapy water going down the drain is also getting diluted, until it is pretty clean. A shower drain is not much different than your kitchen sink, or the vanity sink, or any other in the house. A foot to the trap is still within limits, but I prefer it to be closer to the shower pan. The walls of the drain pipe do tend to get scoured from the running water, so there's not much to eventually smell. If it does, it's not all that hard on most showers to remove the grate and use a bottle brush to clean things. Even on a vanity sink, most have an overflow, and even if you close the stopper, you can get some smells from the walls and overflow area...IOW, a stopper won't help. If the plumbing is not done right, the trap can get siphoned dry, and that CAN make things stink, as you then have an open pipe directly into the sewer. A fixture rarely used may need you to dump some water into it occasionally to reprime the trap. When I go to my mother's house, the fixtures upstairs (that almost never get used unless someone visits) are often dried out - the toilet has almost no water in the bowl, and the shower and sink may be dry. All it takes is one use, and they're back to normal for months again, at least most of the year.

FWIW, there are lots of things in a shower that can smell, especially if it is not built properly. The drain is not the usual suspect.
 
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