Sewage backing up into the shower: causes & quick fixes

Your sewer plays a pivotal role in delivering wastewater out of the house plumbing system to the main municipal drainage line. If any obstructions or breakages happen inside this important and large pipe, it drives different types of consequences, just like a chain reaction. You may face different items backups and even disastrous overflows. Mostly, sewer backup in shower can occur due to the fact that your drain is usually the lowest point of the floor, and so it makes it the closest point for excessive wastewater to escape through.

Toilet and shower clogged at the same time – what to do?

Toilet and shower drain malfunction are annoying, even taken one at a time. And when emerging simultaneously, these disasters can lead any modern household into a total collapse. It’s crucial to discover the reason why toilet backing up into shower. Is it a coincidence? That’s highly improbable. More likely, the initial problem lies much deeper – inside your main sewer line. Both shower and toilet drains are separated one from each other – there is nothing connecting them, except that they both end up in your sewer. When the sewer is blocked, wastewater cannot drain outside, and the only way for it to “escape” is to return backward – straight on your floor through each and all drain holes.

Trying to clean your shower and toilet drains one by one is useless in that kind of situation. The only way to fix it is to clean the sewer itself. It’s not the job you can perform alone without professional help – to clean the sewer, special equipment like hydro-jetter is required. And even if you have one, you may spend hours searching for the blockage or clog with no luck. That’s why expert plumbers use special drain cameras to locate the obstruction and eliminate the target with one clean hit.

Water coming up through a bathtub drain – main reasons

There are two main reasons for sewage backup in bathtub. First – your bathtub drain is being clogged or blocked. And the second – the problem is deeper, inside your sewer. If the bathtub drain is the only source of your problems, you can blame reason №1 for that.

So try draining a little amount of water through your shower or toilet – if it drains freely, you have a blocked bathtub drain problem, and if it fails to drain, the sewer is the culprit.

Is a clogged sewer line an emergency problem?

Well, it depends on how vital your drainage system is for your household. The question seems rhetorical. Until you manage to clean clogged sewer line (or even replace it if it is totally broken), you can forget about using any fixtures of yours – from toilets to even kitchen faucets and sinks. So if you have any reasons to believe that your sewer is not functioning properly – you better call professional emergency plumbers to help you. They are equipped well and ready to handle sewer clogs in one go.

How to unclog a sewer line?

Sewer line cleaning is definitely not a DIY case. It’s hardly recommended to order a licensed plumber’s service call and get them at your place to check the situation up and come up with a proper decision. Emergency plumbers often use hydro-jets to unclog sewer. This equipment employs pressurized water to cut through any type of blockages in a matter of minutes.

Shower backup due to a clogged toilet

Just like in the case with bathtubs and toilets simultaneous backups, toilet clogging can’t simply drive your shower to backup. If you suspect your toilet clogged (for example, you know that someone has thrown paper towels or cat litter into it), that means that blockage has formed not inside the unit but in the main drain line or the sewer.