A few years back, 2017, we remodeled 2 baths, a memorable event, managing the contractor, his subs, doing a lot of the work myself, after hours to clean up some of the errors, mess left, but in the end, all came out well.. Except for that pesky linear drain. I just looked d it up, an infinity 60" linear drain cost us ~$700 plus labor at the time.. Then a while later, I tried lifting the grate out to clear hair from a few years, while I was at it, discovering the tile guy had used too narrow a block to keep the space clear for the drop-in grate. the channel is just PVC, so couldn’t take the pressure of the adjacent concrete. Evidently he had to pound it mightily to make it fit! So then, as I had it out, I had a machine shop slim it down a bit.. As it turns out, not enough. Once again I’ll have to pry it out with a block, crowbar and a steel plate hooky tool I made to get hold of it..
Once I have it out this time, I’ll have the machine shop take a good 1/8" off so it slips in n out without needing a crowbar! Even if they have to slice it, narrow it, weld it back together! Cost isn’t the worry, replacing just the SS grate, from what I see is like $400 and UP!
Progress, sort of.. I got the drain grate out, a hairy mess, but as I’m flushing the crud out of the channel, it backs up! I know there’s a trap just below, but I can’t find my snake… Flip a coin, call my plumber or go buy a snake… I never saw it back up before this… Grrr…
Called the plumber… 9-2 window tomorrow, unless someone breaks free today…
Just called back, today 12-3 Pm Today Better!
Update, plumber came, snaked it in 15 minutes, all clear, wrote a $250 check and all was done… Minimum billing these days… Here at least…
Still have to deal with the grate… Also well add a hair strainer in the drain…
Yeah, sometimes it isn’t worth the aggravation to DIY.
I recently called a plumber to change a tub drain. I tried to DIY it. I bought the thing you’re supposed to pound into the drain, and then use a large wrench to unscrew it. It was stuck. Turns out, the plumber had to cut the drain out.
Would have been better if I had just called them from the beginning. While I had them out, I had them fix a few other things. Saved a lot of aggravation.
Yep, I still have one of those tub drain biters, 1/2" socket, but even a long handle couldn’t budge it, so I drug the air hose & impact wrench in, hammered for a bit before letting loose… If it hadn’t, likely a major event.. That plumber sub for the 2 bath install had tried the fork tool to remove it, broke it, gave up, so I went out bought that tub drain biter… It’s living in a drawer in the shop, never needed again, most likely..
Update today, I ordered the hair strainer for the 2" outlet, but also gave up, took the 60" grate to a local machine sop, the grate has 10 ribs on the top surface, rather than shaving the edges more I had hime slice it lengthwise and eliminate the center space, won’t affect the drainage, solve it permanently. Should have done it the first time… So, I await his callback when done… $200/Hr, 1 hour minimum… Made up the before & after results, hopefully the final.. Awaiting the callback..
