What are the most likely causes of water remaining in the plug hole after the bath has drained and how to fix? This is a bath in a rented place and the recently replaced bath panel has been completely sealed with silicone, so looking for possible fixes that don't involve taking it off. The arrows in the photo indicate the water level.
Water Pooling in Bath Plug Hole
- Thread starter markjg123
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Sink and drain unblocker works well for this. Pour it in and leave overnight. Any hair and sludge is dissolved and will wash away
If the water isn't draining away fully then there's a restriction somewhere. As suggested, buy yourself a pump plunger, cover up the overflow and get pumping.
Shame you can't get to the trap though, bath panels should never be fully sealed up, makes servicing a nightmare.
From a plumbers point of view, please only use caustic unblockers as an absolutely last resort and if it doesn't work then please let the trade know it's been used when they come to sort it
Shame you can't get to the trap though, bath panels should never be fully sealed up, makes servicing a nightmare.
From a plumbers point of view, please only use caustic unblockers as an absolutely last resort and if it doesn't work then please let the trade know it's been used when they come to sort it
I don't fully understand this. What's the purpose of taping the overflow and what's the sponge if the overflow is sealed off?
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When you plunge you create pressure to move the crud. Problem is the pressure will just come out the bath overflow and not put any force on the sludge in the waste trap or pipes.
Tape over overflow and hold a sponge over tape or it will just get pushed off with the pressure
Tape over overflow and hold a sponge over tape or it will just get pushed off with the pressure
Or possibly the outlet pipework rises to an Invert Level the same height as your standing water level in the plug hole, unfortunately to remedy that would mean taking off the bath panel and checking the pipework
Does it drain at a normal sort of speed, up to that point? To work properly, the pipe work should have a steady constant fall from the outlet of the trap, to where it eventually discharges. If it rises up anywhere along the pipe length, that could retain the final bit of water in the bath.
Yea it drains normally then stops at the level shown in the photo.
You must have, somewhere, along the pipe, where it rises up to the level where it stops then.
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That implies that somewhere the pipe work is too high
Imagine the cutaway side view looks like this:
If the pipe from the trap runs uphill til the bottom of the inside of it is level with the depression in the plug hole, it will drain while the bath is full of water
But as the bath level falls, there isn't a height difference to push the water over the "hill" of the pipe any more and everything comes to rest with the water level equal on both sides of the dip formed by the trap
Interestingly this is the same concept as a type of measuring level used over a big distances on building sites where two glass tubes are connected by a flexible pipe and when held upright the water finds an equilibrium where it's at the same height at both ends. in the glass tubes. The ground/structure etc can then be marked at the height of the water and it is known that those two points are the same height, and can be measured from to eg ensure two walls 10m apart are built to the same height
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