Over 698,000 strictly plumbing related posts
Plumbing education, information, advice, help and suggestions are provided by some of the most experienced plumbers who wish to "give back" to society. Since 1996 we have been the best online (strictly) PLUMBING advice site. If you have questions about plumbing, toilets, sinks, faucets, drains, sewers, water filters, venting, water heating, showers, pumps, and other strictly PLUMBING related issues then you've come to the right place. Please refrain from asking or discussing legal questions, or pricing, or where to purchase products, or any business issues, or for contractor referrals, or any other questions or issues not specifically related to plumbing. Keep all posts positive and absolutely no advertising. Our site is completely free, without ads or pop-ups and we don't tract you. We absolutely do not sell your personal information. We are made possible by:
Author:
stillwatergirl (MN)
I thought I had this problem solved, but turns out it's still a mystery. I've included a link to photos in a slide show at the bottom.
I have a really frustrating situation with my second-floor shower and am hoping you can help. Two local plumbers have already each spent 2 hours looking, and came up with no answers, so they both told me it was a problem with the tile or grout, but it is still leaking after all possibly questionable areas were resealed. I will first tell you the situation, and then tell you what has been tried so far. I have also attached photos.
Situation: This is a 110-year-old house in Minnesota, and is a story-and-a-half. A bathroom was installed on the second floor approx. 15 years ago (by the previous homeowner). The shower in that bathroom is fully tiled with a showerhead on each side (left and right as you are facing into the shower). Each showerhead has its own on/off handle. A month ago my daughter saw a leak in the main floor ceiling below the bathroom. The upstairs toilet and sink hadn’t been used yet that day, but she had just finished taking a long shower. I have since tested to make sure it is not an issue with either the toilet or sink. The bathroom is built over a bedroom, and I poked my finger into the place in the ceiling where water was dripping, and my finger poked through. However, there was no mold, and the area of damage is very small, because the leak is a small, slow drip. There is no access panel to the shower plumbing below or on the right side, but there is some access to pipes running to the left shower head via a crawl space.
Troubleshooting and Findings:
1. Two plumbers have each spent 2 hours trying to find the leak, but neither was successful and they both told me it isn’t a plumbing issue, but a tile or grout leak. The first man cut the ceiling hole below to a size of approx. 6”. Because of plywood and joists, he didn’t see anything helpful there because water is dripping along the edge of the plywood and there is no way to see what is actually leaking above. He saw no water running along any visible pipes. He then examined the drain in the shower floor, but didn’t see anything there to indicate a problem. He removed the handle and showerhead plates and there was little room to see, but he found no water on those pipes. Next he ran the right showerhead, and water began dripping into the ceiling below after about 5 minutes. He did the same thing with the left showerhead, and it also began dripping after about 5 minutes. Lastly, he filled two large buckets with water and poured them down the drain, upon which there was no drip. This led him to conclude that the leak was not a plumbing issue, but a tile or grout issue.
2. After he left I purchased sealant and carefully filled any crack or holes in the grout that I could find. I also purchased a drain plug, and the next day put it on the drain and then ran the shower until there was approx. 3” of standing water in the shower floor. Filling the shower floor did not produce a drip. And I left the water for more than 3 days, during which time nothing at all leaked. It also did not drip when I drained this water.
3. I had a second plumber come out and he did basically the same tests, coming to the same conclusion. He put a huge bead of sealant around the base of the shower walls, even though I’d told him I had standing water in there for over 3 days. In any case, that hasn’t helped either. Water leaks whether there is a person in the shower deflecting water around on the walls, or if no one is in the shower and the water is going straight down to the floor which I already determined isn’t leaking.
4. Both plumbers told me there was no drip pan; however, I’ve looked at instructions for installing a drip pan beneath a tile shower and they are supposed to lie between 2 layers of mortar. The plumbers said it looked like the tile had been laid right on the plywood because you can see a chunk of mesh and mortar hanging over the edge of the plywood.
5. I was then told by several people that the only fix was a complete tear-out and redo, because if there was a pan below, it had to be failing because it was installed incorrectly or the drain holes were clogged. My tile is 15 years old and I can’t find a match for it anywhere, so taking out any part of the shower walls means taking everything out. I got bids that are far above my ability to pay, and it frustrated me that people were suggesting a big fix to a problem that hadn’t been accurately diagnosed.
6. A tile expert came over to put a bid together, and he told me that the drain used is the kind that you would use with a drip pan or liner. He thinks that the pan was either installed improperly, or the holes are clogged. So he gave me what I consider a really high bid ($2,500 plus whatever the plumber charges) to take the whole shower out and put in a new one.
7. I wanted to test one last theory I’d had: if the leak wasn’t in the tile (which tests proved), and it wasn’t above the drain (which tests proved), it had to be below the shower. When looking into the drain pipe, I can see bits of mortar or crumbling caulk or grout at the line where the drain body meets the drain pipe. By gently scraping with a screwdriver I come up with a gray, sandy residue. I found a handyman site online showing that a bad gasket in the drain assembly (which is placed below the drip pan) can cause the shower to leak, and this seemed to make sense. If the leak is in that area of the drain pipe, then running the shower would make water cling to the sides as it ran down, permeating the holes. But pouring buckets in at a higher pressure and speed for a short amount of time does not cause a drip.
8. So I stuffed a rag into the drain pipe, pushing it below the gasket and drip pan holes. I ran the shower, and water was already dripping from the ceiling by the time I got downstairs. So it seems clear to me that the leak is somewhere in the top 6” of the drain assembly, probably at the gasket. However, I called the tile guy and he told me that isn’t it—he insists that the drip pan is failing because the drain holes are clogged. But this doesn’t make sense to me because if the drain holes are clogged, they wouldn’t allow water into the drip pan when I stuffed the rag into the drain, so why did the drip occur when water was standing in the area where those holes are?
9. I was pretty confident, and someone suggested I could use the shower temporarily by bypassing that area with something like a funnel. I found a piece of pvd pipe at the hardware store that had a rim at the top and then extended down 5”. I placed that into the drain opening, then sealed around it. I’m not sure if it is long enough, but I thought it should be. However, I tried taking a shower today with that in place, and went downstairs only to find water dripping from the ceiling again. FYI it is a really small amount of water. For a typical 5-minute shower there might be a total of a tablespoon of water.
This is as far as I’ve gotten. I would like to try just taking out the floor tile and installing a new drain body and gasket then putting in new floor tile without disturbing anything in the wall tile, but the tile guy is insistent that it won’t solve my problem. Before I have my entire tile shower ripped out to diagnose this, I am hoping someone with a better understanding of what is in there can help me. And thank you so much for offering your expertise! I’m a single mom on a limited income due to several physical issues. Also I am recovering from sinus surgery and can’t do anything myself right now anyway. I have a main floor bathtub with a handheld shower, but this is my only actual shower and I am desperate to get it functioning properly again.
[www.slideboom.com]
|
Post Reply
|
Author:
KCRoto (MO)
Ok, the mesh looks like fiberboard tape, and it was probably put there to help prevent concrete from running out all over the place. I don't know how anyone determined that there wasn't a liner. The way the trap is connected with a backwards T is an issue, but not the main concern at the moment. The fact that the shower held water for 3 days without leaking says that the leak isn't due to having or not having a liner. I suspect that the water is either coming from the water line to the shower head behind the wall, or it is leaking in around the window and running down. When you are in the shower, water bounces off your body and will hit surfaces higher and in an opposite direction of the water's stream. use a shower curtain to block off the window and see if it leaks still. If it does, you can run the shower into a bucket and pour down the toilet. If it leaks, it is behind the shower wall.
|
Post Reply
|
Author:
packy (MA)
if you plugged the drain and had 3 inches of standing water in the base, the leak is not around the tile nor the drain nor pan.
i believe in previous post you indicated the plumber removed the shower heads, capped the shower arms and turned water on. no leaks were found.
you probably should get a cheap hand held shower hose, replace a shower head with it and spray down one wall at a time.
|
Post Reply
|
Author:
mackzien (CA)
Check your shower arm to see if it is cracked in the wall where it threads into the elbow.
Best Wishes
|
Post Reply
|
Please note:
- Inappropriate messages or blatant advertising will be deleted. We cannot be held responsible for bad or inadequate advice.
- Plbg.com has no control over external content that may be linked to from messages posted here. Please follow external links with caution.
- Plbg.com is strictly for the exchange of plumbing related advice and NOT to ask about pricing/costs, nor where to find a product (try Google), nor how to operate or promote a business, nor for ethics (law) and the like questions.
- Plbg.com is also not a place to ask radiant heating (try HeatingHelp.com), electrical or even general construction type questions. We are exclusively for plumbing questions.
Search for plumbing parts on our sponsor's site:
Special thanks to our sponsor:
|