Shower drain clogs yearly after clearing - call plumber or DIY?

Question

My shower drain clogs infrequently but regularly - about every year or so. The first year it happened, I used one of those 18" plastic drain "hooks" (and pulled out a fairly large hairball). It clogged again about a year later, so I got a 20' snake and ran it all the way through to the end, hoping there was a blockage farther down that I missed the first time. Another year later, and it's clogged again!

Should I just keep doing what I've been doing and expect to do this every year, or might a plumber be able to clear out the problem once and for all (or at least get me a few years before having to do it again)?

I don't know for sure, but my guess is that there's a bend or turn close to the shower that's catching hair and I'll just have to keep doing this, but if there's a more permanent solution, I'd love to know.

Answer 1

in homes with lots of women, or men with long hair, this is a constant battle. the only way to prevent this is to put a hair catcher over your drain, but these are a nusiance. primarily the problem comes from hairs getting stuck at some bend or sticky area in a pipe, and this acts as a scaffold for more hairs to accrete and so on and so on. if you regularly pour a bottle of some sort of sodium hydroxide based drain cleaner down the shower drain (say once every week), it will be the best you can do to prevent it, as it will regularly be cleaning the pipe and attacking any hair that has accreted in the previous week.

the only permanent solution is to convert the drain pipes to a larger size and a smoother finish (eg. remove old 1.25 inch copper and replace with 2 inch abs) all the way from the drain to the main stack.