New shower cubicle leaking

[anon]

Grrr,

we have just had an extension. The down light below the new bathroom was dripping water today.

The shower cubicle consists of Stud walls, plasterboard and a coram waterguard shower tray

The walls are tiled over the kip of the tray. I have noticed that due to shrinkage the mastic at the bottom of the wall (as it meets the tray) has gaps in it.

I'm tempted to re-mastic then (and only ) if necessary remove the bottom couple of rows of tiles, remove the plasterboard and fit some pieces of aquapanel, join with mastic to the existing plasterboard and tray and re-tile then re-seal with mastic. I think the leakage at the sides is due to the gap at the bottom and the high flow of the water swamping over the lip into the space below the tray between the new gaps in the mastic.

Any comments or suggestions gratefully received.

A

[Nigel Molesworth]

Get the builder to fix it.

[.]

abso pigging loutely ! that should have been sorted out in the snagging ?

[Jonathan Pearson]

Indeed - and given that aquapanel is around £15 a sheet and that you need about 3 sheets per shower at most - why on earth didn't he bother to use if?

Jon

[Jeff]

More likely a waste problem

Regards Jeff

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It would take quite some time for water to soak through plasterboard - and aquapanel will still need sealing between sheets, and to the shower tray. Sounds like this is the problem.

[Stuart]

Have you checked the wate outlet .I presume you can get access to it.

Stuart

[Lobster]

Having had the same problem, with no obvious source for the leak, I decided to line our shower cubicle with a large sheet of polythene, taking care that it overlapped the tiles at the bottom into the shower tray. That cured it completely, meaning that the problem is nothing to do with the waste outlet (which is not very accessible).

Next step is to cut back the polythene to just above the tray, and if it starts leaking then, it can only be the mastic seal which has failed (as opposed to all the grouting in general).

(Trouble is, the polythene has been up for about 3 months now, and the shower works fine... I know that as soon as I start cutting polythene, sooner or later it's going to start leaking again, so there's not all that much incentive - other than the ever-increasing SWMBO ranting - to proceed!)

David

[anon]

Yes I did, the waste is fine. I can see a row of drips along the bottom edge of the tray after I have directed the shower head at the wall of the shower for a while. I think the tray has dropped a little, the gap between the tray and the overlapped tiles is slightly larger and the broken mastic seal is allowing water over the lip.

As I remember when the plumber fitted the shower tray he had to remove a few inches of the plaster board to fit it in, it wasn't a neat lgap above the lip on the tray. The tiles therefore bridge the gap between the plaster board and the lip on the tray. I have managed to adjust the front legs of the tray to close the gap a little but can't reach the back legs.

[anon]

The bedroom floor now squeeks and the shower tray definitely seems lower. Is it usual for the floors/ building work to settle as the materials dry out etc?