Yes; Yes; Yes; and Yes.

If I remember, I run Drano down all of the drains once every couple of months, on the basis that prevention is cheaper than cure. Otherwise, if I notice one of the drains is getting a little sluggish, that's my cue for cleaning all the drains in the house. The whole process takes ten minutes -- start upstairs, work my way downstairs, leave for 5 minutes, then rinse everything with warm water.

The Drano works equally well on hair (showers/tubs) as it does on grease (kitchen).

We have hair traps on the showers, but they're not perfect. Despite keeping these clean, our drains still get sluggish if we don't look after them occasionally.

Great to know and great practice for keeping the drains clear, thanks!

Here's a picture of the type of thing that can be used to suction a drain and also to suck standing water out of a clogged tub or sink. This is the only thing that finally worked for us while trying to unclog our sink last year:

Thanks!

I got above as well and can confirm this is great, just need to make sure that there is no pressure leak.

How do you call this thing in French and where can you buy it in Swiss Romande?

Not a clue, I bought mine in lidl I think back in Ireland...

I live near Zurich and bought mine at either OBI or Coop Bau & Hobby. Do they have those there? I'm not sure what they're called here, but they would most likely be located near the regular plungers (in the plumbing section) of any hardware/home-improvement store here in CH. The one I have is all blue, though -- so it's not the exact same one as in the picture I posted.

When you do use one of these though (and as someone else mentioned), you have to be sure to plug any other drainage holes in the sink or tub (the smaller hole that drains water for when the tub or sink is about to overflow). Only then can you get the right pressure to suction anything up with it from the larger, main drain.

This is what is use ... Its available at Migros and is very effective
Cheers
mals

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Uprooting this thread because I have an issue with my drain.

Due to not wanting to dig hair out of the shower drain every day, I have a trap in the drain, which looks like this:


But because the darned thing's edge rises a couple mm over the drain hole when water flows toward the drain, hair always gets under the trap and thus makes it useless.

Any ideas as to how I could keep the accursed thing from rising and make it stay flush with the shower drain until I choose to remove and clean it?

Thanks.

Put a weight in the middle. Get thee to a Brockenhaus and scrounge around. A large socket, or lump of metal will work fine, you want something heavy enough to keep it down, small enough in diameter to not block the drainage, and non rusting (Bronze, Brass, Lead, Stainless, or chromed/nickle plated). Failing that get a 3/4" pipe plug at the baucenter.

Thanks.
Did so and the thing still didn't work.
Reason:



The inner metal circle (in the middle of the X) is too high, so that any trap of the kind I posted above ends up not being level with the tub floor.

One of these

probably won't be snug either. And putting something like this


won't work, because the hair'll just be swimming around in the water, going straight down the drain when the plug is removed.

Any other ideas?

I agree with the hair thing. You need to regularly check and maunually remove hairs and gunk. This is more effective than any of the chemical methods and also better for the environment.

Of course for the stuff you can't get at, there's still the chemical way.

Another useful tip that my hauswart gave me is that many blockages are caused by insufficient water being flushed down. I was brought up to consider water a valuable resource and to never use more than i need. But doing that means gunk doesn't get washed away as fast as it could and if it is allowed to harden it can cause blockages that are difficult to remove later. He told me that because its an older building that particular drain is rather narrow and also goes around quite a few corners, which are ideal for stuff getting caught and causing blocakges. He said to just let the tap of the problematic sink run from time to time and since I've been doing that I've never had a problem again. This is a sink that previously got blocked at least twice a year.

Are you responding to me? OP hasn't posted in this thread in two years.

I've noticed some people have these pipe things that they stick in the drain after they pull the plug. The pipe has holes in it and the water drains away while the hair plasters itself onto the outside of the pipe and can be removed manually afterwards. I guess its an older type thing they don't make any more but maybe Brockis might have one.

If the problem comes back you could try Wepos Rohr Frei Gel from Migros Bricoloisir. It's stronger than the drain clearing stuff sold at the supermarket and was the only thing that worked for me when the bath drain was blocked