How to open bathtub wall, with least amount of damage?

[micky]

How to open bathtub wall, with least amount of damage?

I have a leak in the bathtub between the hot or cold faucet and the pipe that goes to the spout.

I'd like to take it apart with the least damage to the tiles that are there, because they're already cut to fit the valves, and because I have a little OCC (that's like OCD but not as strong).

The tiles are 4", what looks like plastic, and the grout lines are narrow. All that comes to mind is using a utlity knife to cut through the grout and backer board. Will that work? Built in 1979, before there was green board iiuc so that just leaves sheet rocK????

The way I figure, there is no way to tell in advance if it's the hot or cold that is leaking other than letting it run and going downstairs to check if the water coming through the ceiling is hot or cold, and I don't want any more water to come through the ceiling.

But maybe the leak is in the pipe to the shower head?? When it's leaked, the diverter was set to the bathtub spout, not the shower head. Is that enough proof that the leak is not in the vertical pipe to the shower head? That is, does turning the diverter to one, close off water access to the other? Or does the valve just open and close the water to the spout, and when open, it doesn't come out of the shower head because it's easier to come out the spout?

Wouldn't it come out both the spout and the shower if the pipe were open to both??

I don't think I'm being clear but maybe I am. I'll try again if you say I'm not.

[Bob Vila]

Can you access the pipes from the other side of the wall?

[Thomas]

Unscrew the faucet and redo the spout before ripping the wall.

[gfretwell]

What is on the other side of the wall? Back in the olden days they used to have a plywood access behind a tub. That practice may have gone away by the late 70s tho.

As for the valve, the diverter only plugs up the spout, gravity does the rest and keeps water from coming out of the shower when the spout is open. Some designs had the diverter in the spout and nothing at all on the valves. You can prove this by sticking your toe in the spout while you are in the tub with the water running. It will come out the shower. The fire department knows how to get your toe out if the stick it in too far.

[TimR]

What he said.

If you don't have an access panel, cut one in. If space allows, make it 14 x 14, then you can get prefab covers.

That said, I have that access panel and it didn't help my leak. I cut the ceiling downstairs so I could watch, and there were more problems than just one.

The drain footjoint leaked. That is a pain in the butt but I got it sealed.

The packing on the hot water faucet let a drip out when turned on. I couldn't get it apart, my plumber replaced the stems. Miracle, they still had parts for this one, unlike my other fixtures.

And then it started dripping only when the bath rather than shower was in use. Hard to diagnose, but my plumber caulked the overflow, we hope that fixed it. Not that water should ever go down there, but it seemed to be the problem.

[micky]

Only by cutting out similar tiles from the shower stall.

I guess I was figuring if I start from the bathtub side there is no chance I'll aim wrong. I'm certain to find the pipes on the first try.

[micky]

Hmmm. I see your point. It doesn't seem likely but it sure seems easier.

[micky]

If the house were bigger, it might have that.

Oh, yeah, I've seen that.

So it's possible that even with the spout open, the water pressure might not be enough to reach all the way to the shower head, but it might be enough for the water to go up 8 or 12 inches and then leak out there. If it's not the spout, though, it's probably a connection, a failed solder joint** and not the middle of a pipe????

**One piece hot/cold/diverter/with shower and spout outputs still used soldered joints, didn't they????

Oh, good. So I should take a phone with me when I do this.

[micky]

Well it used to leak when my brother took a shower in the tub***, but that stopped about 30 years. I figure that crud from my body when I took baths clogged the leak. I hope I don't start it up again (Several n'bors had a similar leak when their houses were almost new.)

***He only did this when he visited. When I took a shower it was in the other shower stall off my bedroom.

I replaced the stems about 7 years ago, but I should have bought stems for all the other 3 sinks and one shower, and I only bought 2 or 4.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Can you be sure it is not the drain?

[trader_4]

Excellent point. That should be ruled out.

[gfretwell]

Along those lines I still have a valve set for a US Brass tub/shower (Stems and seats) free to a good home.

[gfretwell]

You should be able to get close just by doing a little measuring and if it is in a spot where you can live with an access hole (closet, behind a door whatever) drill through from the tub side with a straightened coat hanger to center your cut and open up a hole in the drywall. Go in next to the valve stem or tub spout so you are not disturbing tile. You have a drywall patch coming anyway downstairs to fix the ceiling if you don't want to go with the permanent access idea.

You are probably not going to match that tile so you may be re tiling the whole shower. That 4x4 screams bell bottoms and leisure suits anyway so that might not be so bad. ;-)

BTW don't be shocked if this is stucco and metal lath under that tile. If they didn't know about green drywall, that is what they did.

[gfretwell]

My bet is a leak in a valve stem. Have you replaced the packing? It might be a good idea to take off the stem, clean out the threads on both sides, wrap it in teflon tape and put it back. Those guys were pretty good about soldering as a general rule and if you have pipes going bad I would expect to see it in other places ... same with bad solder joints.

[Bob F]

You could remove the covers around the pipe/faucet holes or the spout and use a cheap "endoscope" camera to explore for the leak. It might not help, but is an excellent tool to aid in analysis of such problems.

[gfretwell]

Since he has a dry wall patch coming anyway it is certainly worth a look. Maybe I am a little jaded since my wife was in construction and she thinks drywall patches are trivial but she will take a hammer to a wall or ceiling in a heartbeat. It does push back the inspector a little tho ;-)

"You wanna see inside that wall, OK" Wham !

[dpb]

On 10/5/2019 3:49 PM, [e-mail] wrote: ...

Drywall alone patches are...the ole plastic tile matching maybe "not so much". :)

[micky]

I don't want to retile the whole thing. That's a job I can't do myself. That's why I was hoping, since only 4** tiles are involved, that I could save them and reuse them. I know they are glued to the sheet rock or whatever is behind them, but since there are only 4 or 2, I thought I could soak and scrape them clean.

**Only 2 if I choose the right side on the first try.

It could be the stem I suppose. I repacked the stems when I replaced the valves but maybe I did a bad job on one. I will check before anything bigger.

It's not the drain. How I know: I was going to partially fill the tub with a bucket, and then drain it, to be sure.

But carrying buckets would have been more effort than what I did. I ran a hose from the bathroom sink to the tub and used that to partially fill it, then went downstairs when the water was draining. Not a drop. Also, I took a couple real baths, for the first time in months, and not a drop.

I bought a connector at HD and the one they had was a quick disconnect. I filled the tub and left the hot running a little bit as I always do, so the water doesn't seem to get cold, but later turned it off at the sprayer thing at the end of the hose in the tub. Everything was fine for 10 minutes when the hose shot off the faucet with a big bang. Hose landed on the floor but no water came out for some reason.

At the next bath I turned the water flow low before getting in the tub but never turned it off. However, the quick disconnect didn't lose a drop of water the first time, but after the explosiion, it sprays quite a bit out of it. So I cover it with a washcloth so it doesn't spray over the counter.

[micky]

I did that when I did the stems 7 years ago, but maybe I did a bad job on one.

What if I took off the decorative chrome tube that goes between the decorative handle and the wall? If the stem is leaking, instead of running down that tube into the wall, it would just drip straight down, near or into the tub, right? And I'll see that.

That is, if it's the stem packing, the water gets back to the wall through that 2" chrome tube, right?

That makes sense, but I'm afraid if it's not leaking there I'll make it worse rather than better.

[gfretwell]

Take the knobs and the bezel off, stuff the holes with paper towels, getting them way inside past the packing nuts, put the knobs back on and run some water. Pull out the paper towels and see if one is wet.