Hello. This looks to be a great forum! I'm glad my search pulled it up.

I have a 2nd story shower leak. Directly below the shower is the laundry room and has the furnace ducts/furnace directly below. I've already decided I'll have to remove the ducts and open the ceiling to see what is going wrong (if there is a way to figure this out from above, please let me know).

I've never done this sort of thing before, so please have patience. :) I'm a pretty handy guy and have done ceiling/wall repairs and minor plumbing things. But nothing like this. I really want to figure it out and avoid a plumber if possible. So, I may need a little hand holding.

When I have the ceiling opened up, how exactly will I know what is leaking? I mean, what if it isn't obvious where the water is coming from? Is there some secret that will reveal this for me? Are there places I should look first?

Before we bought the house 3 years ago, we were aware that there was a previous leak at some point, but it didnt appear to be recent, so I had assumed it had stopped or fixed somehow by the previous owner. However, we recently had a drain clog and I put off clearing it. A couple of days later, the dripping started (not a major leak, but a decent drip) into the laundry room. I dont know if this offers any clues, but perhaps the clog somehow had something to do with it. I have cleared the clog, but the leak continues.


Thank you
Rick

Hi Rick,

Before we start to tear up your ceiling let's localize the leak. A few details first. Manufactured shower base or custom tile shower? If a manufactured shower base is there a little give when you step in it? Type of shower valve. One handle or two knobs? Does it get worse when the shower's being used or does it drip all the time? Waiting on you, Tom

Hi Tom.

Thanks for the quick reply. I decided to tear up the ceiling, because it had to be repaired anyway. There was quite a bit of water damage.

I did a lot of testing just to make sure it was a pipe leaking. As it turns out, I was completely wrong, it wasn't the pipe leaking, but the manufactured shower base. I didn't see any holes or cracks, so I'm guessing it is just in need of a new caulk job.

Luckily before I went too crazy, I did a lot of testing by pouring water (from a bucket - to rule out an actual pipe/nozzle/knobs problem) everywhere and trying to find out where it was happening. After a while, I narrowed it down to only leaking when the water was running down the side of the tiled wall and hits the caulked seam of the tile/shower base. Turns out, the clogged drain had nothing to do with it and that was purely a coincedence (unless there is a second problem).

I'm glad that it wasn't a pipe problem, because after opening the ceiling, I see that it would have required opening up an even larger hole than I could have imagined in order to get to the drain pipe (because of the furnace underneath blocking the easiest route).


Thanks! I'll report back if I was wrong and the caulking doesn't fix it. And/or there is a secondary problem.