Any idea what this stuff is I pulled from the drain?

[numberforty1]

I have a brand new house that was just built two years ago, we have another place so we aren't even here all the time, and I'm usually the only person using this shower. All piping is either PEX or PVC (which supposedly is resistant to mineral buildup?), and there are actually two strainers over this drain.

Yet, I pull this out of the one shower drain, and I didn't even get all of it yet, because it is still draining very slowly.

I'm just outside NYC, and the water here is just on the border between soft and slightly hard. We don't really get any hard water stains to speak of, maybe slightly in the toilets after a long period of time. All the other drains in the house are fine, including the other shower.

It's mostly this crunchy, hard, flaky stuff, but it just doesn't seem that mineral buildup could have happened that fast, and only in one drain, with no signs anywhere else.

This sound familiar to any experts?

Thanks!

 

[sarg]

Just to mention ..... It does look a bit like the sediment I wet vac from my electric water heater every six months during maintenance. ( without the hair & soap mixed in )

 

[Twowaxhack]

Grout mixed with soap and hair.

 

[sarg]

Grout mixed with soap and hair.

A very good assumption ......... if it doesn't recur ........ then it's probably grout that was introduced during construction .... if it does happen again it's something from your "system".

 

[dmmsr]

Where is your shower located in relation to your kitchen sink?

Grease can also harden up like a hard too and resembles it in the picture.

Its good chance it's not, just a thought.

 

[numberforty1]

Where is your shower located in relation to your kitchen sink?

Thanks, but no, the shower is on the top floor and kitchen is downstairs. Got an auger today to try pulling the rest out, I just don't think this hard brittle stuff will catch on the auger as easily as hair does, so I'm not confident about being able to get it all. Any ideas on how one dissolves or pulls out a grout-like substance like this? I used a rubber tube hooked up to a shop vac to get the stuff that I got already.

 

[dmmsr]

I figured it was not.

Might have to rent a drain machine with 3/8" cable. If that does not work then might need to open the ceiling below and replace that section.

 

[Dshow]

Just thinking out loud... Once you have gotten all you can with a shop vac, should you try to flush the rest down with a larger volume of water? (eg snake a running garden hose down the pipe?)