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As the owner of Rocky Mountain
Bathrooms I've diagnosed a lot of leaky showers
and bathtubs over the years. Lots of relationships
with customers have started with a phone call from
an exasperated customer who has been suffering
water damage from a shower or bathtub for years
and is ready to fix it once and for all.
I'm
going to show you how we go about diagnosing a
leak. Leaks let you know they exist by water
appearing and pooling, soaking or staining
something. It could be a ceiling below, the floor
next to the bathtub or shower or even in a hallway
floor outside the bathroom. While the proof does
let you know that you have a leak, don't read to
much into the location. I've seen ceilings get
water damaged not from the bathroom directly above
them, but from a bathroom above them and 50 feet
on the other side of the house. Water has a funny
way of running down hill and finding the path of
least resistance, it can leak from one area and
run all the way to another place before it shows
itself.
The first rule is not to jump to conclusions. Think
logically of course. Bathroom directly above water
damage, could be that bathroom is the culprit, but
keep an open mind don't get to narrowly focused
yet you could be on a wild goose chase and you
don't ever want to start tearing open walls and
ceilings until you are reasonably positive you are
in the right place.
Rule #2 is the mind will play tricks on you.
It's very easy to associate circumstances and
confirm circumstances in your mind. I can recall
one particular problematic leak that the homeowner
swore was related to running the shower. The
ceiling was damaged directly under the shower
upstairs and they connected in their minds that
every time their son who took a shower after work
in the afternoon it would leak, but it wouldn't
leak any other time. If someone took a shower in
the morning it wouldn't leak. Well it turned out
it was a plumbing vent pipe unrelated to the
shower that went right up next to the shower and
through the roof of the house. The roof around the
vent pipe was damaged but the roof was configured
in a way that rain wouldn't cause much water to
get into the hole, but that winter we had a big
snow storm and every day after it got warm the sun
in the afternoon would melt the snow that had accumulated
around that vent pipe and it would leak down and
run all the way down that pipe and pool in the
ceiling below the bathroom. It would take it 3-4
hours and sure enough it would coincide with about
an hour after their son took his afternoon shower.
So be careful what you assume and what you
associate, the mind will try to find ways to
confirm your suspicions. The
final rule is to confirm your suspicions. You
must always test your suspicions. And think about
how you are testing it, make sure the way you are
doing it isolates any other possibility. This is
the only way to truly find the leak. You must do
isolated tests of each suspicious item one at a
time. So
lets take a typical shower or bathtub with a tiled
surround and either a bathtub or a fiberglass
shower pan. You've got a leak of some sort showing
up either outside the tub/shower and you've
observed and eliminated that it isn't the kids
splashing water over the side at bath time or
water leaking out the shower door.
The culprits are:
-
The tile
surround, which could be the grout, the
corners or the connection where the tile meets
the tub or the shower pan.
-
The drain,
which would be the drain itself or the
overflow in the bathtub
-
The valve
in the wall.
-
The
plumbing connections in the walls such as the
hot and cold feeds to the valve and then the
connection of the valve to either the shower
head or the tub filler.
So we have only
9 individual things that it could be. So that at
least makes it easy. 9 Is a lot but if we are
systematic we now have a list and a process to
find out which one it is.
Lets start
with the drain.
Start with examining the drain itself and the area
around the drain, are their any cracks is the
drain loose or nice and firmly seated? Get in
there and step around it, put some weight on it
see if a crack shows up that you didn't see until
you put some weight on it. If you see anything
like that you might have your culprit right there.
But like I said don't jump to conclusions we must
test, test, test! Let's
isolate the plumbing that is attached to the
drain. We need a rubber hose running to a water
source not in the shower or bathtub (remember we
need to always isolate our tests, you can't run the
shower or tub valve to test the drain without
running the risk of the problem is really the
valve right?) Most home improvement centers will
sell different types of rubber hosing by the foot.
You can purchase a length of it that will be big
enough to go over your vanity faucet aerator. So get your rubber
hose and stick
it into the drain and run the water for 15
minutes. Come back and see if you see your leak
appear where ever it has always shown up. If it
usually doesn't show up for an hour, wait an hour.
If you see your leak, it's the plumbing attached
to the drain and you are done testing. No leak,
now it's time to test the drain itself, take your
rubber hose out and run the water into the shower
pan or tub and do your wait and check. If you get
your leak it's something to do with the drain
itself, or that crack you found. See how easy this
is.
Now lets say no leak yet. Well, now we know that
it's not the drain or the drain plumbing let's now
move onto the valve and the plumbing in the walls.
If you have a leak before the valve you would have
a leak all the time. So obviously we don't have
leak in the hot and cold water lines attached to
the valve in the wall or you would know it by the
constant leak. If it's a tub, lets test the tub
filler, since we know the drain is not leaking,
just turn on the tub filler and fill the tub. Let
it run for 15 minutes and check. If you see your
leak you've got a leak between the valve and the
tub filler, there is probably a copper elbow or a
joint that is broken. If you didn't find your leak
let's check the tub overflow while we are at it.
Close the drain and fill the tub up to the
overflow and let it overflow into it for 15
minutes. Find your leak? It's the overflow
connection where it is attached to the tub.
Okay let's check the shower head plumbing.
The shower head is connected to the valve by a
copper pipe all we need to do is plug the shower
outlet and turn on the valve, this will pressurize
that pipe in the wall with water. To do this you
will need to take off the shower head and cap the
shower pipe stem with a threaded cap you can buy.
Or remove the entire shower head and stem and
insert a threaded pipe with a cap into the elbow
in the wall. However you do it, just plug it and
turn it on for 15 minutes, the pipe will be filled
with water under pressure and now if you find your
leak it's the connection of the valve to the
shower head. Okay
if you still haven't reproduced your leak it's
pretty easy from here, you've eliminated
everything else but the tile surround which by the
way is usually the number 1 or number 2 most
likely cause of leaks. So from here all you need
to do is turn on the shower head and aim it at the
walls, now this is not scientific and will not usually
result in a very accurate locater of the exact
spot. A better way is to take your rubber hose,
hook it up to the shower head stem and hold that
hose over each wall for 10-15 minutes apiece until
you find your leak. This way you will know for
certain exactly where it is. Examine the tile,
look specifically at the grout, do you see any
hairline cracking or missing grout in the area?
That's usually all it takes. Press firmly is it
spongy?
The final thing to do is after you think you
found your leak, is to wait a day and try it
again. Double check it and make it leak again.
Stop now and think about it, make sure you have it
positively isolated. If you do all that and you
are systematic you should now have found your
leak!
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