Inspection panel in shower??

[The Question Asker]

Hi, We have a slight problem, in a shower room we have a shower cubicle with partition walling on three sides and a door on the other on one side the partition is only bout 1/2 a foot wide and is where the pipes and things are, we have a problem in that the room below occasionally gets a leak from the shower above, we have managed to pin point the leak to the shower outlet but we are unable to gain access to it because the clever builders tiled from floor to ceiling and didn't leave a inspection panel.

Anybody know where I can get an inspection panel that can be tiled and removed if we need to ever remove the panel again.

Cheers for any help Oli

[BigWallop]

Would it be easier to make a hole in the ceiling from below and see if you can gain access to the drainage system under the shower tray ?

[The Question Asker]

[BigWallop]

Sorry !!! Mis-understood. If it's anywhere near or behind the tiled walls, then you'll have to bite the bullet and knock some of them off to get to the leak I'm afraid.

[BillP]

Hi Oli,

In defence of the "clever builders" I'm afraid it's the price you pay for concealed pipework and fittings. Most built in shower installs don't give you access in the event of a problem. Most of the time, there are no problems. When there are, as BW says, that's the time to bite the bullet and do some destruction and repair to sort the problem. It's aesthetics vs practicality I guess.

Pipework buried in walls, flush mounted fittings, shower trays fitted at floor level with no trap access, all look superb. They don't look that superb when the problems develop later. You pays your money, you takes you choice.

Billp,

[The Question Asker]

[Steve]

Can you not do it from the other side of the wall, the way they do it in hotels ?

Steve

[Steve]

Are you saying this wall is tiled on BOTH sides then ?

Steve

[Andy Dingley]

You might have one already. Get a Fein Multimaster and the carbide sawblade. You can saw a hole clean through the tile joint line and the backing board, and lift out aneat panel. Then it goes back onto a newly constructed support batten with some low-strength mastic and you can grout it back invisibly.

-- Smert' spamionam

[Ewan MacIntyre]

Whoever designed my downstairs bathroom had much forethought: The separate shower room has the plumbing on a wall which backs onto our cloakroom, with a (hopefully waterproof) partition wall in between.

So, worst case scenario, I have to buy some plasterboard some time in the future. A good excuse to get rid of the hideous tiles :-)

Ewan