Recently as we have been taking showers we have been standing in a few inches of water. A few days ago the drain was nearly completely clogged. The culprit? Hair. Long hair has a tendency to go down the drain and wrap around the plugs in the pipe. While it is a great convenience to have a simple lever to plug the drain it can also be quite a nuisance.
After procrastinating the dirty chore I broke down and unclogged the drain using only items found around the house. Generally with tubs installed in the last twenty years the drain in the tub goes down an inch and then turns sharply towards the wall where the faucet it. Once at the wall it takes a sharp turn down. It is at this second elbow where the plug drain and lever are attached, and also the likely hair ball which is clogging your drain. To remove the ball of hair you need something flexible with barbs.
I had some extra weed whacker line and I cut off a couple feet. Using a knife and started about an inch from the end I made cuts into the line about a third of the way through and towards to end, thus creating about a dozen or so barbs. I then removed the drain cover from the tub, which is supposed to catch the hair, and pushed the line down the drain. It was obvious when I had inserted the line far enough because the hair ball would not allow it to be inserted any further. I then gave the line a few twists and gently pulled out. The barbed line had hair all over it. I removed the hair and repeated the process. After about fifteen minutes or so I had removed a decent amount of hair from the drain. I turned the water on and was delighted to see that the water was now draining at an acceptable rate.
While I am certain that there is still hair stuck in the drain the rest can wait for another day.