shower leak dammit

My shower tray leaks at one corner where the metal framed glass panel joins the wall. The leak reappears on the kitchen ceiling, but not the bathroom floor.

No amount of sealing seems to work. I suspect the metal frame work fills with water and slowly drains down after a shower.

I vaguely recall you should seal only one side of the base of the metal frame.

Any tips?

Reply to
andyv
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The only sure way of sealing this is to take the whole thing off and re-seat it again, or even better, buy a new one and fit that. The chances are that when you remove it there will be a gap somewhere (maybe in the tiles/joints or in the shower tray itself) and then you can do it properly...IME many months / years are spent attempting to patch these things up and all the while they just get steadily worse - any longer and you may have to replace the kitchen ceiling, which also means a full re-decorate of that room into the bargain.

On the plus side, you can claim on your house insurance if this is the case, but only usually for the damage caused and not the actual fixing of the leak

Reply to
Phil L

Yes, what I think you may have is this:

/| /| ------------\ /|| ----------------- /|| | /|| | wall /|| | frame /|| | /|| | /|| ----------------- /| ------------/ /| channel

The frame fits snugly, but not watertightly, into the channel which is fixed to the wall. Water gets into the channel from the channel/frame joint inside the shower. If you've sealed the bottom of the channel to the tray on the inside then it builds up inside the channel and runs out through the channel/frame joint on the outside. It may help to make a gap for the water to run out of the channel where it meets the tray inside the enclosure.

Reply to
John Stumbles

FWIW I had a nasty wet patch appearing on the base of a wall the other side of which was a shower..

Turned out that the hole through which the shower head feed came had a gap due to tile unevenness and water was draining behind it into the wall. Silicone fixed it.

So make sure the leak isn't somewhere equally obscure..

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

This latter situation may well be the problem. I've no way of knowing whether the base of the channel where it joins the wall was properly sealed , and I think I will have to resort to removing it from the wall to check.

With regard to allowing a gap to let water run out, the shower was originally installed with sealant around the outside of the base of the enclosure. I'd assumed this was to let any water run back into the shower tray, but in fact it seems that this is a good way for it to get into the frame. It runs down the glass, finds the gap then seems to go in. I filled it both sides but this didn't help however and I've taken the inner sealant off again.

Reply to
andyv

It will inevitably get into the wall channel from inside so seems to me the trick is to let it out on the inside too.

There can be other non-obvious ways for water to escape. PITA I'm afraid.

Reply to
John Stumbles

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