Shower drain stinketh - Oatey Casper mold

[jschwend]

Hello! I have a drain on the master bath shower stall that gradually builds up mold and needs cleaning. As if I don't have enough things to routinely clean in the bathroom.

It's an Oatley Casper installed by the house builder plumber on a shower pan (not sure the material). It looks like the rough cut of the pipe is too long by about 1/2 inch. Because of this, there is a permanent pool of water ringed around the inside. My thought was to get one of these: https://www.menards.com/main/plumbi...parts/quikcutter-internal-pipe-cutter/ps-100/ to trim from the inside being careful (of course) to not damage the black rubber gasket. Do I need that extra pipe length? Was it just the plumber being a bit lazy?

The pic shows a quarter in the "ring pool" of water. I had just cleaned it today too.

 

[jschwend]

Oh! forgot to add, this shower is used twice daily. The pipe is clear of debris, hair etc. The smell is a "damp" smell even if the shower is very dry. There is no mold in the shower stall itself. The smell is there within a few hours of finishing the shower or so. This has been a problem since we moved in 7 years ago, but i'm sick of cleaning it.

 

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[Terry]

Does the shower drain maintain water in the p-trap between uses? That's normally where I would think the smell would be coming from.

 

[jschwend]

Does the shower drain maintain water in the p-trap between uses? That's normally where I would think the smell would be coming from.

Thank you Terry for the fast reply! I'll keep an eye on the level this week and report back.

 

[jschwend]

Well, a week has gone by. The drain was kept clean, but we had one time with the sour smell. It's really hard to tell if it's too low because it's so far down into the drain. Is there a trick to measuring the level of water in the p trap? I was thinking of a dowel, but that would be pretty difficult to make it accurate, but not sure.

 

[draithby]

Hi There

I have a leak with the exact same drain that the original poster has, a Oatey Casper drain in what looks like the same shower pan as the original poster - a Swan 36" Neo Angle Shower.

I am having leaking coming under the shower pan from the drain. I confirmed this by cutting a access hole in the drywall in the backside of the wall that has the taps on it. I can see water running a small trail across the floor from under the shower pan.

I have read tones of stuff so far on this drain and how they are installed.

My question is that most posts talk about this Oatey Casper drain that use the big caulking nut screwed down into the drain to compress the caulking gasket to see the drain to the drain pipe.

However, my drain and the original poster's drain in his pictures appears to be some different kind of Oatey Casper drain as i cannot see or feel any of the slots in the caulking nut. I just see what looks like a foam gasket at the top with no caulking nut anywhere to be seen.

Is there a different kind of Oatey Casper drain that does not use a caulking nut and somehow just uses that neoprene looking gasket pressed in or something to seal?