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Wade Lippman
02-13-2019, 9:36 PM
Today I found some water on the floor of my shop. Right above it is a tile stall shower. The grout is all good, but at the bottom is rather mildewed. There are no obvious gaps, but it doesn't look great. There isn't much water and the bottom of the floor looks perfectly dry.
The house is 12 years old and the first owner's son is a plumber and did the work.

Don't showers have tubs under them, to catch any water that might get through?
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Cleaned it up, put some paper towels on the floor and took a shower. There was more water on the floor. This time I saw water dripping through the osb.
Who would I get to fix this? A plumber? A tile person?
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Looking at it more carefully, there is a seam about 20" up that has a 1/16" crack in the grout. Easy to see that water could get through that and leak down, avoiding the pan.
I guess that would be a tile person.

I guess that isn't too serious.

Aaron Rosenthal
02-13-2019, 10:45 PM
Let's not get too happy yet, let's find the problem.
!st, yes, let's caulk the seam. I always caulked edges, and I hope that's it, but ... maybe not. You did't say if it was at a corner.
Coming through the OSB means the basement's finishd, so the chances are, if it's NOT the open caulk, you will be removing ceiling. Try this first:
Assuming you have a single, constant temperature mixing valve, take off the handle and valve cover, then caulk the circumference of the valve cover - there's usually a felt or rubber gasket , and add your water resistant caulk.
Check for leaks.
If that's not it, you'll be cutting out the ceiling under the shower pan to see where the water comes from - it will either be the pipes behind the shower wall feeding the shower head, or a loose fitting on the drain side.
I would come over to help, but it's a long commute.
Aaron

Lee Schierer
02-13-2019, 10:48 PM
Temporarily cover the crack with duct tape and do the shower test again. If you don't get water dripping you found the problem.

Wade Lippman
02-13-2019, 11:07 PM
I like Lee's advice better than Aaron's.:o But if that doesn't work out...

The OSB is the bathroom's subflooring. I can see where the shower drain is and the leak is on the far side of the shower; right below the bad grout, and away from the supply plumbing. Sure, it could be flowing across the floor, but probably not.



I have had major leak damage from a ice maker breaking, a washing machine breaking, a dishwasher breaking, a supply line to my bathroom sink breaking, a toilet fill valve breaking, and my niece repeated trying flush something down the toilet that can't be flushed down a toilet. So far this is really trivial compared to those, but is still upsetting.
And that doesn't include the 5' of water in my basement when ice storm debris dammed the creek next to my house.
I hate water.

Mike Berrevoets
02-14-2019, 6:24 AM
If the shower was built correctly there would be a waterproof membrane behind and under the tile. A crack in the grout wouldn’t have much effect.

I’d put money on there being an issue with the drain.

(I’m not a tile guy by profession but did way too much research when redoing multiple showers at our house and helping friends. The John Bridge tile forum is an awesome resource)

Steve Rozmiarek
02-14-2019, 8:43 AM
Like Mike said, drains and valves are the usual culprits in shower leaks. A failing tile job will have other other indicators, like wet subfloor. Don't assume the shower was built with a pan, plenty out there aren't. Lots of tile over cement board, and a shocking amount of tile glued onto OSB or ply substrate but that garbage is usually found in modular homes.

Bill Orbine
02-14-2019, 9:31 AM
On a couple handyman jobs the leaks, if not the drain basin or liner, tends to be in the corner..... Where one wall meets the other. The walls meet in the corner, but they are sometimes not physically attached to each other as a rigid corner. The wall just meet! I've encountered fail grout joints in the corner more than once. The walls are somewhat flexible. One repair job was easy because there was an attic/crawl space on other side of wall. I was able to reinforce the corner and regrout.
Others, not so easy but a more flexible caulking matching the grout worked, fingers crossed.

Robert Engel
02-14-2019, 10:33 AM
The shower will have a pan that prevents leakage from getting in to subfloor. That said, I suppose its possible it could leak around the drain, but IIRC even the drain is sealed down to the pan.

If you can get hold of the plumber I would ask him how it was installed. Some are solid pans and others are pan mats that custom fit but if installed properly, should be ok.

I had a similar problem once and it turned out to be the shower head stem leaking where it screws into the el. If was a DIY & I made the mistake of using a PVC el rather than one with a copper insert. A crack developed in the fitting the leak occured through the hole in the plate for the supply lines.

If its simply water intrusion into the pan, I still don't think it should be leaking, BUT, you will have a mold issue that sealing will not address. If the mortar under the tile is soaked, personally I would tear out the floor to fix it right.


Once again, I would check with a plumber this may not be as simple as you think.

Mike Cutler
02-14-2019, 11:27 AM
Wade

Do you have mildew, or mold at the base of the shower. Soap residue combined with harsh water from a well can cause a surface mildew to form. Mold is different. Grout doesn't mold. The mold is coming through from the back of the tiles because moisture is in between the tile layer and the cement board. If it's the latter there is nothing to do but rip it out and redo it.
The drain would be my first suspect, and the problem here is that running the water and looking below may not show you the problem.
Shower pans are ,by in large, mortared into place. A layer of mortar is placed under the shower pans to level them during installation. The mortar hardens and the pan is on a firm foundation for life. One trick I have seen many contractors use, is to use joint compound in place of mortar. They'll pour a five gallon pail of joint compound on the floor and level the pan on top of joint compound. Unfortunately the joint compound will break down over time and now the shower pan is not supported.
This lack of support underneath the pan causes micro fractures to radiate outward from the drain flange, and it is the weight of the person taking a shower that causes the pan to flex and the water to leak.
That you have traced to the water makes it somewhat easier.
The pan itself has a flange around it. The tile, and the surface of the wall board, needs to extend past this flange and into the shower. The tile also has to drop below the edge of the wall board and extend into the shower pan to form a "drip edge".
There is a "void area" behind the first course of tile, and the wall board, and this should have been sealed with silicone prior to actually tiling. It would have sealed the bottom of the wall board to the pan. Water in this area can be due to an improper installation, or the pan is again flexing, and the interface at the junction of the tile, pan, cement board, is gapping.
Post tile installation, a bead of RTV should have been shot at the base of the tile juncture. The tile should not be in contact with the shower pan. There should be a gap, and the gap should have RTV applied.
The presence of mold and the leakage kind of leads me to think that an area of tile has been compromised, and you are somehow getting water behind the tile, and it is leaking between the tile and cement board.
Try to find the leak and hopefully you can apply some clear RTV from the exterior to stop it. If not, you'll be pulling out the first three or four courses of tile, the cement board behind them, and redoing the pan.
Sorry, shower leaks suck. BTDT. it cost me a good amount of $$$$ to learn about showers. :(

+1 on the John Bridges Tiling Forum. It's an incredible resource. I would also recommend John's book if it is still in print. It details exactly how a shower should go in, using the various installation processes. It's an invaluable resource and a 1000 times better than any DIY book at Home Depot.

James Pallas
02-14-2019, 12:56 PM
Check the pan first, if for no other reason than to ease your mind. Get one of those flat sink stoppers plug the drain and put 4" of water in it or up to the sill. The pan should be about 6" high. If you don't get a leak forget the pan and look elsewhere. If it leaks you have to rework the pan.

DO NOT USE THE SHOWER VALVE TO FILL THE PAN. If it is the problem it could give you a false positive for the pan.
Jim

Wade Lippman
02-14-2019, 2:02 PM
I covered the drain with duct tape and put in 12 gallons of water, and left it for an hour. It came to about 1.5" at the edges and 2" in the middle. Level didn't go down and nothing leaked. Took the tape off and nothing unusual happened. It wasn't 4", but it was about the same as a shower.

The next step is to try a shower with duct tape over the bad grout; but I will wait for that until my wife takes her shower when she gets home.

Below are photos of the shower and the bad grout. The bad grout is the top grout line, just before the glass.

Getting a contractor to do anything out here is difficult, let alone something this small. Will caulk fix it temporarily with out hurting anything or should I just leave it alone? (assuming I confirm this is the problem...)
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James Pallas
02-14-2019, 4:34 PM
Good as chance as any that the grout is the problem. If mine I would pick out the loose grout. Clean it good with cleaner and a brush. Old toothbrush works well. Dry it good with a hairdryer or heat gun. Caulk it and see. Not going to hurt anything. I think I see a seat or a shelf on the left of the first picture, check that good too. I bet it eased your mind a bit when the pan didn't leak:)
Jim

Wade Lippman
02-14-2019, 5:48 PM
Its all good.
With tape over the obviously bad grout, there is no leak!
A guy is coming out tomorrow morning to repair the grout.
As long as he is here, he is going to regrout the mildewed stuff at the bottom.
Figures it will all take 2 hours. Can't wait to see the bill.

But at least its not the pan leaking.
At least its not the supply line.

I appreciate everyone's help.

Bill Dufour
02-14-2019, 11:51 PM
I have seen blue tarps taped to the wall above the tile. If that stops the leak then the leak is not the pan but in the wall above the bottom of the tarp.
Bill D

Lee Schierer
02-15-2019, 8:03 AM
Unfortunately grout isn't necessarily waterproof. That is why current construction methods use a waterproof membrane behind the tile to insure that water doesn't get to the structure.

Robert Engel
02-15-2019, 9:44 AM
Wade
A layer of mortar is placed under the shower pans to level them during installation.

The way I've seen them done is the pan is set directly on the floor & the mortar is placed on top of the pan, sloped toward the drain and the tile set on top of the mortar.

Even if water gets through the grout, it shouldn't be leaking through the floor.

Caulking the tile is a fix, but not a good fix. Eventually it will fail, plus you have wet mortar under the tile that is going to grow things.

I would plan on eventually removing the tile and fixing the drain.

Before you caulk I would pour some bleach into the cracks and wait a day or two.

Mike Cutler
02-15-2019, 10:00 AM
Robert
I was referring to a Pre-Fab shower pan. which is just set on the floor. The mortar just supports it from underneath.

But you are correct for a completely mortared in shower enclosure. It's getting harder each day though to find someone that is willing to do it that way. Those guys are retiring to Florida at a rapid rate.

Wade
Glad your problem is easy to remedy.