Question: About three years ago I purchased a home in Goleta that had been “flipped” by a contractor who extensively remodeled all the rooms.
I just love my kitchen and the way that walls were removed in the family room and dining room to create a big open great room.
But a few months after moving in I noticed that an area of carpet in the master bedroom was damp and it turns out that my beautiful travertine shower in the master bathroom is leaking under the wall, and water is seeping out onto the concrete foundation into the master bedroom.
The contractor has been out several times, and he has caulked and sealed the tile, but my carpet still gets wet when the shower is used.
He says he sold me the house at a loss, and he can’t spend any more money fixing the shower pan. I really don’t have a lot of extra money either, but I want to get this fixed before the leaking water damages the walls.
What are my options for getting this shower pan sealed properly?
Your Handyman: Unfortunately, a leaking shower pan or drain is not going to get any better if left alone, and you are smart to be concerned about what else might be damaged by the moisture.
The wood sill plate that sits on the foundation and possibly the bottoms of the wall studs behind the shower could be wet, they may start to rot, and mold could possibly develop inside the wall and in the padding under the carpet.
Even the best caulk and tile sealer is not going to permanently stop this leak, and there really is no quick or inexpensive solution.
I would suggest first making a small opening in the drywall on the wall behind the shower where you are finding moisture in the carpet to, hopefully, get an idea of how wet the wall is and maybe also a little insight into the cause of the leak.
The travertine tiles and grout in your shower are moisture resistant but are not considered to be waterproof, even when treated with a tile sealer.
The base of a shower is referred to as the shower pan with the idea being that this “pan” contains any moisture that may get through the tile and grout, much like a pan holding water on the stove.
When correctly building a shower pan, the first step is to lay a bed of mortar over the cement foundation inside the shower stall that has a minimum slope of a ¼-inch per foot to the drain assembly, and often the slope is as much as a ½-inch per foot.
Next, a membrane is carefully laid over this mortar bed, lapped up the shower walls for 12 inches or more and over the top of the shower curb, taking care not to puncture or damage the membrane in any way.
This membrane is usually a sheet of gray PVC (polyvinyl chloride) plastic material that is not comprised by the chemicals in the cement and will remain waterproof indefinitely.
PVC is the third-most widely produced plastic, after polyethylene and polypropylene. It is found in many construction and consumer goods, and probably is most commonly known as the white sprinkler pipes that most homeowners have worked with at one time or another.
The membrane is carefully fastened to the drain flange assembly at the lowest point of the shower floor, and there are small weep holes in the flange that allows any moisture that reaches the membrane to flow into the drain rather than to accumulate.
After the pan is constructed, the concrete backer board is now screwed to the wall studs in the shower enclosure, and this concrete backer board is the surface that supports the wall tiles.
If the walls are not plumb, then the walls are floated out with concrete rather than using backer board.
A layer of mortar is then laid over the rubber shower pan material with care taken to maintain the proper slope to the drain, and a handful or two of pea gravel is placed over the drain weep holes to ensure that they are not clogged by the mortar.
When the final layer of mortar is sufficiently dry, the tile setter can start in with setting the tile. It is a good idea that the tile cap on top of the shower curb is given a slight slope inward so that water draining off the shower glass does not sit on top of the curb and naturally flows toward the drain.
It would be difficult to pinpoint what went wrong when your shower was being built, and maybe several steps were not done correctly or were even completely overlooked.
Whatever the flaws are, they are concealed under the tile and, unfortunately, at a minimum, your leaking shower pan and the first 10-12 inches of wall tile will need to be carefully removed before a new waterproof shower pan can be installed. It is possible that the entire shower may need to be replaced.
It’s unfortunate that the original contractor for this project will not help you out, but it really is best at this point to just bite the proverbial bullet and get your shower rebuilt sooner rather than later.
