if you have a leaking shower causing puddles of water,
mould, potentially damage to your flooring and framework timber, then we've got
something in common but where do you start when it's time to
get the problem fixed you could either hire a bathroom
contractor and potentially spend thousands
or do what i've done follow the tips in this video and i'll show you how i
stopped my shower from leaking without lifting a single tile.
g'day, welcome to Inspire DIY i'm Kent, six weeks ago i took on the project of
fixing the issue but i really wanted to test it out before i showed you
whether it works or not, this upstairs shower has been leaking
which subsequently meant that the downstairs ceiling became wet,
and then mould appeared! it's unfortunately common for these tiled
showers to leak over time. stay tuned as I recap the steps that I
took to fix the issue. So let's have a look at the underside of
this upstairs shower an inspection hole has been cut in the
downstairs bathroom ceiling below the shower that's leaking
in an attempt to see where a leak is coming from.
I can see a lot of water damage to the subfloor which is most likely from a
faulty waterproofing membrane it's clearly no longer a waterproof layer.
I can only guess that it's coming from around the tile pan
and not further up the wall and we can't see inside the walls
unless we make a hole. As soon as I turned on the shower up there
we can see water dripping out of this waste and we can see a leaks coming from
around the waste pipe so let's get this fixed undo any
brackets and dislodge the waste plumbing pipe from the shower waste.
there's two common places that the water leaks from the first is the drain,
and the second is the shower's membrane. so we stopped using the shower upstairs
to let the timber and the particle board flooring dry out but this doesn't fix
the problem. I'm going to start today by removing the
drain grate and drain and having a closer look inside
some have a screw that can be removed some are just a friction fit and some
are glued in place I had a feeling that i was going to
break this drain trying to get it out but that
doesn't matter it seems to be stuck in here pretty tight
turns out it was sealed to the drain base with silicone.
Oopsy i accidentally dropped the screwdriver down the drain but that
doesn't matter i just used this magnetic tool
and was able to retrieve it. So this drain
looks like it's been made of two separate parts and all bunged together
with a whole lot of silicone, essentially it's blocked off the
waterproofing membrane from delivering any water to the waste pipe there is or
was a membrane under this mortar and i can see the remnants
of membrane on the inside of this waste pipe it's definitely not intact now
around the drain any water that's getting through any
gaps in the grout finds its way here it's just going to run down the outside
of the waste pipe and drip onto the plasterboard below
I just did a bit of a drawing up here to try and explain how the layers work
so right at the bottom we've got the floor joists
on top of that we've got a layer of particle board flooring
you can see how the plumbing sort of comes out through the bottom of that
flooring now that subfloor is what we can see all
the water damage on on top of that subfloor is a membrane
that gets painted on it gets painted down
almost like one complete skin down inside that
pipe and then about 1500 or whatever five foot up the walls
on top of that membrane we've got a layer of mortar which sort of
shapes the fall of the floor directing water to the center obviously there's
going to be a little hole in the center here on top of that
goes the tiles and then the floor drain, the floor waste for your shower.
Removing all the silicone from around this, that silicone
has not adhered to the mortar it was a failed attempt that
someone's done at one point so we'll remove
the shower waste base
the membrane is a rubbery sort of bitumen based
sealing compound that was used and it's not intact, the integrity of it
is lost and it's left gaps around that pipe
the first job is to change the shower pan waste for a new one
it's slightly bigger so the mortar here is going to need to be cut out a bit
to fit the replacement waste outlet. I had a Dremel tool to use which i just
sort of cut out some of that mortar with, and while i've got the Dremel I cleaned
up a bit of the silicone and grout that's been left behind.
I'm just checking that when the plumbing gets reconnected to the
new floor waste that we're still going to have fall on the plumbing which means
the water is going to be able to escape
running away from the shower turns out we need to trim about 10mm
off the top of this plumbing just to accommodate the slightly bigger
floor waste that we've put in. And this means that then as we lift it
up into the new floor waste we're still
going to have fall away from the shower
I just used the multi-tool to cut the pipe
and then just cleaned up the end of the pipe with some sandpaper.
I've mixed up some mortar, this is so that when I fit
the shower waste in it's going to be a nice solid fitting.
Now i'm taping up the bottom of that floor waste because i want to make
sure the inside of that socket is going to stay clean because
that's where the plumbing is going to need to be glued to.
so i've just uh put plenty of mortar in there...
and push it into place this is where i want to be very fussy and make sure that
i'm at least level or slightly below the height of the tiles,
just so any water that's sitting on the shower floor wants to run
towards the drain and down the hole, I'm going to clean up around the floor
waste any extra mortar that sort of squeezed out
because I actually want to seal around this with silicone.
Just checking that my level's right, that it's sitting slightly lower than the
tiles and let it set for a couple of days.
now that we're back underneath the shower we can see that the mortar is set
our pipes cut we're ready to glue it into place
so we just prep the pipework with some acetone
and then with some plumbing cement i've got my lovely wife standing on the
shower waste up in the top shower so as I push this up there's no risk of me
dislodging it, press it up in place hold it there for a
minute and replace the brackets. the second job is we need to remove all
the silicone from around the shower, heating it up with a hair dryer and
cutting it out with a sharp knife or a chisel.
Then clean off any remnants with methylated spirits.
next we need to remove all the old grout using a grout saw
or a multi-tool if you have one i'm glad i did have a multi-tool because
this epoxy grout was a really hard product to remove
use your dust mask and earmuffs if you have one, all we need to do is
remove a two or three millimeter layer so a new
layer of grout can be applied i'm covering up around the new floor
waste with some masking tape because I want to seal around this with
silicone, not grout. next we finally get to do some
re-grouting! so mix it up toothpaste consistency, spray some water
on, this definitely helps. This is a messy kind of job but
thankfully it's really forgiving and anyone can do this.
All of these jobs that i'm doing i've linked to these
videos in the description below so if you want a detailed
tutorial on any of these jobs you can find it there.
after about 20 minutes the grout will have set enough for you to wipe off the
excess with a sponge, wipe it down, don't use too much pressure
because that might wipe the grout out of the gaps and just
rinse the sponge off often in water.
this is a shot of the day after grouting once it's dried,
and then after we've removed the grout haze.
So here's my recipe and if you're going to take any tip away from watching this
video this would be the one to get! so make this recipe using things you've
probably got in your cupboard at home, it's really effective!
all you need to do is spray it onto the tiles
and wipe off that grout haze it's really good.
Next job is to replace the silicone push the silicone
into the gap ahead of the nozzle i used an acetoxy-cure silicone
it smells a little bit like vinegar while it's curing but this stuff is
better for wet areas like bathtubs and showers.
With a soapy water mix you can dip your finger in and
smooth out the silicone, any excess on your finger just wipe it off on a paper
towel, and wet your finger and carry on
smoothing it off your finger seems to put the perfect radius on the
silicon remember to get all the corners like
under the step.
I also want to seal around the floor waste as well
forcing it in as much as i can and this is such an important part to seal
properly as all the shower's water heads to this drain.
Lastly seal the tiles and grout with a
penetrating sealer, once it's set we can test out the shower
and as promised here's my review and did it work?
so six weeks later, with the shower being used twice a day, there's no moisture!
there's no leaks! the floor under the shower is dry!
the reassuring thing is that there's no more water damage to the house
and there's not a trace of mould so I feel like that was a success
if you want to see any of the products that i've used i'll add them in the
description below. If you like this video or you found it
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