Any suggestions for a bitumen type sealant material to ensure a watertight shower enclosure. After about 12 years or so the plasterwork behind the shower has given up the ghost! I propose to strip everything out - plasterboard it out - then use pva adhesive - then, and this came out of a conversation with a builder, apply this bitumen type product - didn't catch a name - as he-was-going-to-do-the-job-but-didn't-turn-up-typical-story! And finally re-tile. Any ideas what he might have been referring to - sounds like a good tip.
Plasterboard is not a good choice for this... it will fail very quickly if it gets wet. Either use one of the special products designed for this application (e.g. Aquapanel) or or use WBP ply.
If you go the WBP route and install the tray, and then render over the ply (you will need to staple expanded metal lath over it first) and down onto the tray (thus ensuring any water getting through the tiles will meet another waterproof layer still end up falling onto the tray and not down beside it). Glue tiles using a waterproof adhesive - use a full bed of it (3mm thick) not just ribs on the surface. Grout after with waterproof grout. As a final step treating it with something like Lithofin stain stop will keep it looking nice and further resist passage of water. Don't forget the copious use of a good sanitary silicone sealant at each stage.
Probably nothing wrong with the product, but I would rather make sure the water is not going to get into the wrong place in the first place ;-)
I am having a problem with my shower in my upstairs bathroom. When i moved into the house I discovered a leak in the living room downstairs which I assumed to be from the shower above. After putting silicon at the joins at the wall and grout where the old grout appeared to be cracking but the leak still persists.
The leak only seems to happen when I am in the shower and not when my girlfriend is. One explanation I have come to is that it is my weight on the shower tray that is pulling the silicon away from the shower tray and so water is getting in.
Alternatively, it could be the draining pipe from the shower is also leaking. Would it be wise cutting a hole in the living room ceiling to see if the pipeworkl was the cause. Obviously I want as little repair work to pay for as possible.
I had the reverse situation in one shower..only when the wife was using it...
Turned out that the pipe coming out of the wall with the flexi hose on it was not sealed, and she stood face to the wall and drenched it, whereas I like a warm back and less pressure, and stood further away..
So check any pipes that pierce the tile barrier, and silicone them up.
The controls are also a favourite place for water to trickle behind the fascia plate..
You can diagnose this pretty easily by running water directly into the shower tray from a hose, without wetting the side walls of the cubical at all, for a period longer than you would normally expect to generate a leak. That will tell you if it's the plumbing at fault or a duff silicone seal/poor tiling.
You could also try lining the whole of the inside of the cubical with polythene, stuck on with duck tape, and overlapping the silicone seal [1]. Providing the plumbing beneath the tray is intact, that *must* sort the leak. Having established that, you can then cut away the bottom few inches of polythene; if it starts leaking again, you know the leak is the silicone. If it doesn't, keep gradually cutting the polythene back over a period of time to nail where the leak is.
David
[1] Have to admit that I've tried the polythene approach with our shower, which has a leak somewhere... only problem is that *months* later, I can't face the prospect of starting to cut back the polythene... SWMBO really likes the decor effect as you can imagine ("...what's the problem? Shower works, doesn't leak...".
We had the same It was water going into the holes in the hollow aluminium door frame and running through the wall behind the tiles and down the wall. When my wife was in the shower the splashes didn't reach as far up as she is shorter so the water didn't get into the holes. I cured it by taping up the holes. I'm presuming they should all have had rubber bungs in them. Chris J
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