I recently purchased a home with what looks to be a newly remodeled stand up shower. It is a walk in style with 3 walls that are a hard, shiney plastic material. Anyway, the shower shares a wall with our laundry room and when ever we run the shower water comes out from underneath the walls into the laundry room.



I will I'll post a picture of the shower drain. There appears to be a couple issues. For one, the roughed in copper drain pipe is not centered with the plastic flange that threads into the shower base. Also, the copper pipe seems to be too low.



Any advise on how to make a repair?



I have a second issue issue with this washroom which involves a few different things.

1. The toilet bowl water goes up and down from time to time;

2. I get a small amount of water that comes up my shower drain when we run the washing machine.

Could this newly remodeled bathroom have been misproperly vented? Or not vented at all? Could I have a backed up main vent line, and if so, wouldn't I experience plumbing issues in other fixtures upstairs?

Was a permit pulled for recent work performed? Any warranty? The water backing up and probably the toilet water level fluctuations, is caused by a restriction in the drain piping. That shower drain is ???!!! and needs to be redone.

Thanks for your quick reply Steve! Unfortunately I believe the seller of the house did the work himself and he is not in the construction industry. I have not checked to see if permits were pulled for the work either. I'm not sure what I would be able to do if they were not. As far as insurance goes I'm researching the option of going after my home inspector and his insurance for the repair since this is something he checked and signed off on as in good working condition.

I figured I would have to take the shower apart and redo it. Would the copper pipe need to be resoldered to come up higher AND center on the base opening?

I don't see a copper pipe, I see a PVC pipe coming up in the shower drain. I think you are in luck as far as the leak. That drain can be unscrewed from the top, siliconed and retightened. I believe that will stop the leak.

To me, it looks like copper pipe(thin wall) is surrounded by concrete(or?) and cut flush with finished floor. The shower drain assembly was attached to the pan and just resting above the copper pipe. The pipe might have been aligned for the previous shower and not moved for the new shower location.

I think it's an offset drain.

I think you're correct. Shouldn't the rubber washer be under the pan and not the flange?

Well I removed the shower base and found a stub floating in an old basement floor drain. I will post a picture below. The stub is two pieces. One top piece with an offset opening on the bottom and a glued stub into the off set opening. I think I was getting water coming back up the original floor drain and coming up under the base of the shower. In your opinion does this drain look like a floor drain for the entire basement? It seems to be at the lowest point of the basement. Also, would it be ok to put a shower drain into a floor drain?

Yes, the rubber washer should have been underneath. It appears that someone just dropped a pipe down into a floor drain. That was (is) a slab drain for the basement. It's quite possible that it's partially clogged and that's where the water was coming from, since there wasn't a secure connection between the shower drain and the floor drain. Fist thing to do is mechanically clean the underslab drain pipe. Then maybe chisel out around the pipe so it can be connected to the shower drain. Does it go to the sewer system ? We just run our floor drains to sunlight here, no connections to the sewer system.

It does go to the sewer system. I don't have a pit since this is a split Level Raised Ranch. The basement is still slightly above street level. Do you think I would be able to simply chisel out the end of the pipe a bit to make a solid drain connection for the shower? Do I need to. Drift that there is a vent?

yeah, you can open up the cement and cut the pipe back a foot or more. this will allow you to put a trap in the exact location.
change the shower drain you have to one that relies on a rubber gasket to make the seal around the pipe.
if you don't get any smells out of your floor drain, you won't get any out of the shower after you are done..

So I had a plumbing company come out and rod the drain. They got about 40 feet and then discovered tree roots once they remove the line. There is no more blockage at this time but the roots will probably grow back. Any advice moving forward regarding the roots in the line. I will not be reinstalling a shower in the basement since I don't have the time or the money to do it the right way right now.

There are products you can flush down that drain that will help with the tree roots. Some people swear by using water softener salt, other people use copper sulfate. You flush the stuff down the drain when you won't be using it for a few days, that gives it a chance to come in contact with the tree roots and get taken up by them. The roto-rooter or reddi-rooter people have been selling something like this for years, you get a 16 or 32 oz box from them every 6 months and put it down the drain with some water to carry it to the tree roots. I know people that do this and they say it has drastically reduced the number of tree root stoppages they used to have.

Other than running another drain line or have the drain cleared on a regular basis that's about all you can do.