Shower drain sealant

My son in law has an ongoing problem that has defeated 3 plumbers so far. Today he called me to have a look. It's a triangular shower cubicle with a base of plywood (we think) that has had the original tiled surface removed and replaced with new tiles. This was after the water ran down the wall of the room below. Then plumbers came and have obviously tried multiple bodges with bits of pipe, lots of sealant and a little round "plughole" with a lot of small holes as the "customer facing" drain. When daughter showers, the drain is slower than the incoming water, so this isn't very good.

Son-in-law had purchased a rather nice drain fitting off ebay, but found it was too deep for the space available, so the plan now is to cut it down, then bed it on sealant. The question is whether there is a "best" sealant for this. He will try to dry out the hole in the plywood first, and then try a ring of sealant into this messy hole, then build up a ring of sealant into which the metal drain surround will be bedded. The ring of the new metal drain surround is an almost exact fit in the hole in the tiled ply, so the sealant will have to seal any tiny gaps. I would imagine that there will be some chance of slight movement when the lady is standing in the shower, so the sealant needs to be very sticky initially then form a very firm but slightly flexible seal that can be stood on. Can one get very runny, grippy sealant to soak into the ply edges and then gradually build it up with progressively stiffer, more solid sealant that will bond to it?

When he got the old sealant bodge out, there were signs of water staining where the sealant should have sealed against the plywood edges of the raw drain hole.

Reply to
Bill
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Agree. This sounds horrible, and the bodge unlikely to succeed.

Cheers Richard

Reply to
geraldthehamster

In message , harry writes

The problem is that it's almost triangular in a sort of small corner alcove in a bathroom. It would mean either having at it with a load of in-situ fibreglass or having something made. Net search didn't give me much idea of price for bespoke trays, but I imagine the cost of ripping it all out and starting again would be way outside their budget. I thought of suggesting using epoxy and fibreglass tape across the edges of the hole in the plywood and forming a sort of wide funnel to the drain, then bedding a grill of some sort over the top, but I'm not convinced we could get the plywood dried out enough for this to work. I repeatedly tell them that you can't beat a shower over the bath with a curtain, but I'm always ignored.

Reply to
Bill

I suggest installing a flow restrictor so that the water supply is slower than the drain. Assuming that the shower head always runs at the same flowrate, then the fact that it's always the daughter's showering that causes the problem means that she just lets it run for longer than anybody else. When she complains that the shower hasn't got the power it used to, explain why, and tell her that she can have the old flow back, as long as she cuts down on the time it runs.

Reply to
Davey

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Reply to
djc

Oh yes they do

Reply to
The Other Mike

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