How to Remove a Bathtub Pop Up Drain

The pop-up style is only one of five different types of bathtub drains, and when the pop-up mechanism wears out and fails to hold water in the tub, you may want to replace it with something else. To do this, you have to remove the stopper -- a simple task -- and the drain itself -- a more difficult one. You'll probably need a special tool called a drain key to unscrew the drain from the shoe. It wedges against the inside of the drain to give you enough leverage to turn it.


Flip the stopper lever up or turn it to open the drain, depending on the type of lever you have.


Grasp the stopper with one hand and pull up. It may lift right out of the drain opening, but if it's attached to a rocker arm, you may have to pull the arm horizontally away from the tub as soon as the stopper clears the drain opening. Have a bucket handy because the rocker arm is probably full of hair and soapy scum.


Insert a drain key into the stopper and begin turning the knob on top of it counterclockwise. This makes flanges splay out from the sides and wedge against the sides of the drain.


Turn the knob as much as you can by hand, then grip it with a wrench and continue turning. It may take a fair amount of force on your part, but the drain should start turning in the shoe.


Unscrew the drain all the way and remove it from the shoe. You're now ready to screw in a new drain with a different type of stopper.