I am getting too old for this crap!
For the past 10 years or so, the drain from our shower/spa bath has gone directly out to the banana circle. Occasionally we do get a blockage, and I usually fix that by taking the shower head off the flexible hose and applying water pressure down the drain and that clears it.
Under the house I go!
We got such a blockage recently so I applied my usual fix, but to no effect. I went out into the back yard and fought my way through a forest of bananas, arrowroot and cardamom plants, eventually finding the exit point of the drainpipe. I applied the garden hose to that end to use the water pressure to push the blockage back up into the spa. After a few unsuccessful trials there was a sort of 'pop' and there was no longer a barrier to the tap water, and at the same time all of the remaining shower water drained out of the spa.
This did not fill me with joy!
The outlet
What I had to fight through to get there!
Clearly something had come unglued, but I needed to crawl under the house to access it. (did I mention I have become somewhat claustrophobic of late?). I kitted up with an old shirt and pair of jeans and crawled under the house. As I suspected, all of the drained water had gone onto the ground and turned underneath the bathroom into a bit of a bog.
What I found when I crawled into the slop was that the top of the valve I had put in to shift discharge from the banana circle to the sewer had popped out due to the pressure and a panther sized hairball was leaning drunkenly out of the valve case. Clearly this was the source of my problems. (disgusting!)
The hairball!
I was able to fit the valve back in after considerable cursing and swearing, but the screw-on ring that secured it appears to have vanished! Anyway the system seems to work at the moment and at least some water is finding its way to the bananas, plus none is going on the ground under the bathroom. I can see that it is only temporary and I may need to crawl back under at some stage and try and secure the valve again somehow.
As we all know, prevention is better than cure, and when I originally posted this on the Under The Choko Tree Facebook group, a friend posted that installing a filter over the drain in the spa to catch the hair before it made it as far as the valve would be a good idea. This seemed to me to be a wonderful idea as I was not aware that such a thing existed. I have since obtained and installed such filter and I await to see how well it works. (Thank you HGT)
Hairball preventer in place
