Oatey gripper down the drain

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Inoj1854

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Hi guys my name is j and I've been lurking on here for a while.

I'm getting ready to grout and was cleaning my stone mosaic shower floor today. I left my oatey stopper in after I leak tested my kerdi shower...figuring I'd prevent debris going down the drain.

This evening after cleaning the shower floor I had a bit of water sitting in the drain the stopper. I turned the wing nut release too far and everything except the top of the oatey gripper plug went down the drain. All I got out was the red cap and the wing nut.

I couldn't see anything when I took my shop light and shined it down there. Without thinking it through I decided to take about 10 gallons of water and flush the drain out. The drain takes a 5 gallon bucket of water down as fast as I dump it... So I guess that's good.

What are your thoughts on this? I have the kerdi drain tying into a 3 inch abs with a pea trap....it then ties into my toilet. The shower is in the basement. There is no access from below.

So I guess what I'm asking is can that oatey lower flush through my drainage system or did I f up really bad?
 

Terry

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The city utility people are going to love you for jamming their pump downsteam. Is this on septic or city sewer? If it's septic, it may wind up on the bottom of your tank.
Normally a p-trap is 2". If you have a shop vac, I would try to suck that thing out if possible.
 

Inoj1854

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Sorry it is a 2 inch. it is city plumbing. I bought a 1.5 and a .5 inch piece of flex tube and ran it down the drain as far as I could get. I don't think either made it the whole way through the pea trap. Nothing. I also tried to suck from the toilet drain and no dice.

So you are thinking I lost this out in the street already? Going to keep trying to suck it out and see if I can get a better angle. So pissed at myself right now.
 

Terry

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So you are thinking I lost this out in the street already? Going to keep trying to suck it out and see if I can get a better angle. So pissed at myself right now.

There are some shower drains that come with a meter flat bar for installing. I dropped the bar down the drain a few times before I saw someone post about stuffing the drain hole with a rag first to prevent that. Seeing as how I had dropped a few in, now it made perfect sense to me.
If the plug mades it's way through and you can see it in the p-trap, maybe you're okay. I had a brother-in-law that used to drop into the pits and unclog the pumps on the city end. It wasn't his favorite part of the job. :)
 

Inoj1854

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Thanks. I put in another 45 mins of shop vac'ing at different angles from the toilet side and the shower p trap side. No dice. Guess I'll see what happens over the long haul. Out of the 2 months of labor I have into the job this is my only mistake. So bummed it had to be something that could require a jackhammer in the future.
 
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