Camco 42273 RV Sink & Shower Strainers, Set of 3

Clogged drains are one of those small RV headaches that turn into big ones fast. A hair snarl in the shower or a scrap of food in the galley sink, and suddenly you're pulling a P-trap apart in a campground with a flashlight in your teeth. Camco's 42273 sink and shower strainer set is the cheap insurance that keeps that from happening. You get three strainers in one package, sized to drop into the common drains you'll find in an RV bathroom and kitchen.

The idea is simple. Each strainer sits flush in the drain and catches the stuff that shouldn't go down there. Food, hair, bits of packaging, whatever ends up near the opening. Water flows right through. The gunk stays on top where you can see it. When it fills up, you lift the strainer out, empty it in the trash, give it a rinse, and drop it back in. No chemicals, no plunging, no taking anything apart.

These are molded from chemical resistant polypropylene, and that matters more in an RV than it does at home. Your gray and black tanks get dosed with holding tank treatments, and your galley sink sees dish soap, degreasers, and the occasional splash of something harsher. A cheap strainer that softens or cracks after a season of that isn't worth much. Polypropylene shrugs off those chemicals and keeps its shape, so the same three strainers should last you plenty of trips.

Because RV sinks and shower pans rarely share the same drain size, the set includes three different sizes. That gives you a good chance of a clean fit whether you're covering a shower drain, a bathroom sink, or the kitchen basin. Match each strainer to the drain it sits closest to, keep the spare in the cabinet, and you've got a backup if one wanders off during a move.

Getting them in place is about as easy as it gets. Set the strainer over the drain opening so it sits flush with the surface of the basin or shower pan. It'll stay put on its own once it's seated. There's nothing to screw down, nothing to glue, and nothing that'll leave a mark when you take it out. That also means you can pull them all before a long haul, stash them in a drawer, and reinstall when you set up camp.

In the galley, the strainer earns its keep every time you rinse a plate. Rice, coffee grounds, bits of onion skin, that's the stuff that builds a slow drain over a season. Catch it at the sink and it never gets a chance to settle in the trap or the gray tank. On the water, the same logic applies to a boat's freshwater sink and shower sump, where a clogged line is even more of a pain to reach.

If you spend real time off grid, you already know plumbing problems are worse when you can't just call someone. Boondocking a week out, the last thing you want is a slow shower drain backing up around your feet. Keeping solids out of the lines upstream is a lot easier than clearing them downstream. This is a first-timer friendly upgrade too. It costs almost nothing, installs in about two seconds, and it teaches good habits before a clog ever forms.

Cleaning is the whole maintenance routine. Lift, empty, rinse, replace. Do that every few days on the shower strainer and you'll rarely think about your drains again. These won't clear a clog that's already downstream, and they're not a replacement for the occasional tank flush, but for the everyday food and hair that starts most clogs, they do exactly what you want. For a few bucks and three of them in the pack, it's hard to think of a simpler fix.