Hi there…we have a leak in our second floor shower drain. This had happened once before we bought the house (you can see where they patched the ceiling drywall). We have opened up the ceiling and managed to get the nut loosened from the underside of the drain. There was a paper gasket (which basically had “disintegrated” and flaked off when we pulled it down), on top of the rubber gasket that seems a bit stretched out. The PVC pipe from underneath is glued in to the flange pipe in the shower stall. When in the shower stall inspecting the flange pipe, there is no gasket or caulking apparent underneath the lip – the pipe flange simply sits against the bottom of the shower stall. My question is where to go from here. Do we simply replace the gasket underneath the shower stall? Does there need to be some type of silicone caulking or gasket under the lip of the drain inside the stall? I have read about the Wing-tite replacement drains, but would prefer to fix the one there if possible. Thanks for your help... Tony and Anita.:)

OK Tony,

You're well on your way to repairing your leak. The fiber washer was installed wrong. It's a anti-friction washer that goes underneath the rubber washer.
Before we get into repair let's find out why you have to do it at all. What's happened here is the seal under the drain lip has gone bye-bye and you have no seal left. This usually happens when the floor of the shower enclosure hasn't been bedded properly and gives or flexes a bit when someone steps in and puts weight on the floor. In time the putty seal under the drain lip will work out and there you have your leak.
For a quick repair force plumbers putty or silicon jel all the way under the drain lip and retighten the nut under the drain. For a permanent repair do the above plus beding the shower floor with mortor, cement or wood. More questions? I'm as close as a click. Tom

Hi again... thanks for the quick reply last week. About bedding the shower stall... the bottom of the shower stall is mostly covered by a piece of 3/4" plywood under it that has a hole in the centre (about 5x8 inches) where the drain pipe leaves the shower. There appears to be a bit of a gap (perhaps an inch or so) between the plywood and the shower stall. How would we go about bedding the shower stall better? And one more question... should we be able to just reuse the old gasket (I don't think we can get a new one on easily as the pipes are glued, unless we stretched it over the drain lip from inside the shower stall)
Thanks for all your help, greatly appreciated
Tony and Anita :)

Hi Tony, Welcome back.

Would it be possible to shim the plywood up around the drain area so it supports it? As for the rubber gasket, You're going to hafta use the old one unless you wanta cut the raiser and install a new friction ring and gasket. The one thing I would do is cut a new friction ring from hard cardboard and make it a "split washer" so it will slip UNDER the rubber washer and OVER the nut so the rubber washer doesn't spread out. All this after you place a ring of plumbers putty or silicon jel under the lip of the drain for a seal. Good luck, Tom