I really appreciate all the effort you’re making to try to help me!
It’s been the past 3 homes, there are no brand names, and yes they really are fully grouted on all 4 sides as well as screwed in. It seems to be the norm now, at least in Chicago.
Here is a similar tile-in square shower drain, but obviously not in situ:
I installed one exactly like that in my bathroom floor last fall! That one will take a hair trap. I’ll see if I can get a short video of pulling the grate when I get home.
(The really cheesy ones don’t have any screws at all, nor do they have the cast metal part that this one screws into - they just snap into a plastic housing by friction. Sometimes people glue that kind in because they haven’t figured out you can just bend the little ears with your fingers to make them fit tighter.)
Wow, thanks!
Just keep in mind that I don’t actually KNOW if mine has the cast metal part underneath…although it looks like it does. But there’s no lip on mine: the top edges of the drain cover are fully grouted in. Not even any cracks in the grout.
Yeah, once there’s a lot of gummidgy built up in there, it can be hard to tell whether it’s plastic or metal.
The one you posted has two cast metal parts; the grating sits down into the frame, and the frame is set in thinset mortar and surrounded by grout. You can see the seam where the two pieces meet by looking right between the screw heads and the outer edge. It’s one of the two most common square kinds and the easiest to get unstuck. Kohler, Noble, Sioux and others make them.
The other most common type uses a stainless steel sheet metal cover instead of the more expensive chromed cast brass. (Brass is better for sanitary fixtures, but much more expensive). They often don’t have screws at all. Here’s one with screws:
See how there isn’t anything between the grout line and the drain cover? There’s no frame at all, the cover just sits on top. Technically, these are fully grouted in, but grout doesn’t have the ability to grip that thin of an edge. Grout’s just a fill material and not a structural material like thinset. These are also pulled straight out, but it’s best to run a super thin blade around the edge first, to minimize the chances of grout cracking off and getting pulled out with the cover.
If somebody pulls one of these drain covers out and manages to pull out some of the grout at the same time - which is pretty easy to do - they will probably go over it with caulk after reseating the cover, which is kind of your worst case scenario. You have to cut the caulk out, and some of it may have squeezed under the edge were you can’t cut it, and that will greatly increase the chances that the cover will get bent all to hell while you’re pulling it out. And then after you replace the cover, you have to caulk again; you can’t really go back once you caulk it.
All of the above is why I use the kind you posted, and not this kind.
OK, I still got three days… I pulled the two in my house this morning and took snapshots, I’ll upload ASAP.
And I should have time tomorrow to unscrew the two screws and just see what happens.
This bathroom is being used daily by a 16 year old girl so there’s makeup and hair clippings spattered and scattered everywhere. I apologize in advance. The cubby across from the WC is for a stacked clothes washer/dryer unit, that isn’t installed yet, because I haven’t done the molding transition or finished the vent yet.
OK, I’ve shown (off) the high quality drain in my new bathroom, here’s a polar opposite. This is a really cheap round drain in a really cheap fiberglass shower surround with really low quality installation. I will be rebuilding this bathroom next.
OK, so there’s the two extremes. It sounds to me like yours may be right in the middle of those two, which unfortunately I don’t have a sample of to make a photoset.
If you can afford a good plumber, consider having her take it out for you the first time, so that if the grout chips or it turns out there’s caulk involved or if the cover gets bent or cracked she’ll probably already have what she needs to fix that on the truck. If not, just look at it real carefully first, and see if you need to run an x-acto knife around it carefully, then unscrew it and yank straight up with a couple of bent coat hangers!
You have gone out of your way to be amazingly helpful…thank you!
You nailed it: what I have (and this seems to be the norm here, because it’s three places in a row) is in between the two extremes you’ve shown. It’s a 2-piece system that is fully grouted in place so it can’t be easily removed the way it’s SUPPOSED to be.
We don’t dry clean and thus have no wire hangers, so I used locking needle-nose pliers to try to pull up the unscrewed grate, and there was no sense of give at all.
I do not have the strength or manual dexterity to make the x-acto knife actually cut through the grout correctly. Maybe it’s just really hard grout?
So, I think your suggestion of a good plumber is the only way to go. The problem is, I haven’t found the combination of good+plumber around here yet.
Seriously, you’ve gone above and beyond…thank you so much!
I love this place.
Aw, no problem. I appreciated your advice on getting around Chicago when I was there last year, happy to return the favor. Plus I got to show off my nearly completed new bathroom. 
From the sounds of it your drain cover’s so firmly stuck it might crack the grout if you just muscle it out, and then you’d either have to regrout (just around the drain, though) or caulk (which ends up disgusting in the long term as demonstrated above, so don’t do it!). Looking for a plumber could be your best bet, just for the first time.
I don’t dry-clean either, but once you have two wire hangers they start to reproduce… it’s a mystery. And they are so very very handy as tools!
I have no likes to give this morning!
Maybe, in this case, it’s less a good plumber than a decent handyman who knows how to use a knife and re-grout. This isn’t a real plumbing job than a finishing job, so don’t spend the $100 an hour.
Excellent point!
Of course, I don’t have a handyman at my disposal either. Sigh. I used to be able to do more, so I didn’t need to pay people.
Just get a range in prices and know that no matter how expensive the best one is, they’re still cheaper than the least expensive plumber. 
Ain’t that the truth!
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