Conquering a leaky shower!
Have you ever noticed a persistent drip, drip, drip in your bathroom or worse yet, in the ceiling below? Not only is it one of the most annoying sounds, but it’s also a sign that you have a leak. Detecting a leaky shower is crucial before it wreaks havoc behind your walls, potentially damaging structures and inflating your water bills. But, although it may seem like it is coming from your shower, it isn’t always. Below we will talk about two areas you should check before calling a pro out!
#1 Check The Shower Pan Weep Holes
Identifying the source of a leaky shower can be a tricky task. The issue could be your pipes inside the walls or could be related to the drain or shower pan, if tiled. But before you panic and call a plumber, the first thing we recommend you to check is the weep holes in the shower pan.
You may have noticed your shower pan has small channels on the ends. Many times we see, inexperienced contractors or homeowners cover over these areas with caulk, as seen below.
After taking a shower, there is plenty of water left behind on your shower walls and grout. This water can seep through the porous grout lines and find its way down to the pan top, behind the tiles. The fiberglass pan is factory pitched so this excess water can reach the channels and make it’s way back into the pan to the drain.
Ventilation between materials, facilitated by weep holes or channels, enables the materials to dry effectively after showering. When these channels are obstructed by caulk, water accumulates and can eventually overflow outside the shower area. Additionally, mold may be observed on the caulk at the top of the pan, where it meets the tile. Shower pan channels should be left open, as seen below.
#2 Roof Vent Pipe Could Be The Culprit
We get tons of calls from people who have leaky showers. They usually call a plumber first and after they find nothing, the plumber refers us to repair the grout or caulk. While most of the time it is a tile, grout or caulk issues, we have come a cross this scenario many times, where it’s not even the showers fault. The drain vent pipe that exhausts on the roof has a damaged flange that is allowing water to run down the pipe and drip!
In the picture above, it’s easy to understand why people blame the shower for the cause of the leak. The white pipe is connected to the shower drain and then to black pipe. Take notice that the black pipe runs up. That is the vent that goes to the roof. We tracked the pipe into the attic and found the issue right away, see below. You can see the stream of water running down the pipe. (luckily it was raining pretty heavily outside)
Fortunately for this person the leak was in their garage and was very easy to find exactly where the water was coming from and fix.
Before contacting a professional for a leaky shower, make sure to inspect the two items pointed out above. It could save you a ton of money! If you find that your shower pan has clogged weep holes, let us fix your problem. Simply reach out, call or text us at 908-864-2122 or complete our estimate form and someone will get right back to you.
Follow us on Facebook for more tips and hacks
