Accessing a leak.

silvercar

Original house had an extension built that included a garage with a bathroom above.

There is now a black mould patch on the wall of the garage where it joins the house about 50cm down from the ceiling with what looks like a water stain mark around it.

I'm guessing that something in the bathroom above has leaked. Two parts:

1. How can I easily access the leak, I'm guessing it must be under floor level in the bathroom. What would be between the bathroom tiled floor and the plastered garage ceiling. I would rather punch holes in the garage ceiling than wreck the bathroom floor tiles.

2. Where is the leak from? As the leak is showing in the wall rather than ceiling, I can't easily identify the source. The sink taps are fine as I can access them from under the sink. The sink and shower are on this wall but neither drain points are as far over as the wall. The drains from the shower, sink and bath must merge somewhere and then go under the floor to the far wall and the pipes are outside the far wall of the garage. Either it could be the shower sealant, but that was redone about 2-3 years ago. Or it could be one of the drain joints or possibly the shower. But the mould spot is nowhere near where I would expect any outlet to be.

Any ideas appreciated.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

What is directly over the stain?

If its the shower it will most likely be the sealant.

If its not the sealant then you need to make a hole & have a look.

ritesh

I had a similar issue with a leak from the upstairs bathroom and a big water stain on the walls ajoining the new extension below (the whole house was gutted and re-done with a single story rear extension). Without wanting to rip out the newly fitted bathroom I instead opted to cut away a small section of the plasterboard from downstairs to investigate before cutting out a larger section to fix the leak. Instead of putting up new plaster board I replaced with a large access panel. This might not be to everyones liking but it saved a huge cost. A year down the line I had another leak from the flexi hose going to the tap in the same bathroom and all that was required was to remove the access panel, fix leak and replace access panel, once all had dried out.

silvercar

1984ReturnsForReal wrote: »

What is directly over the stain?

If its the shower it will most likely be the sealant.

If its not the sealant then you need to make a hole & have a look.

Nothing. The stain is on a wall not the ceiling. Nearest point to the stain is not near any drain/ tap but I suspect water travels. I'm also guessing that it is hot water that would cause black mould as the garage is cold so there would be a warm/ cold temp difference at the point of the leak.

silvercar

ritesh wrote: »

I had a similar issue with a leak from the upstairs bathroom and a big water stain on the walls ajoining the new extension below (the whole house was gutted and re-done with a single story rear extension). Without wanting to rip out the newly fitted bathroom I instead opted to cut away a small section of the plasterboard from downstairs to investigate before cutting out a larger section to fix the leak. Instead of putting up new plaster board I replaced with a large access panel. This might not be to everyones liking but it saved a huge cost. A year down the line I had another leak from the flexi hose going to the tap in the same bathroom and all that was required was to remove the access panel, fix leak and replace access panel, once all had dried out.

Good idea. I'm happy with an access panel in the garage. Actually I'm happy with a bucket in the garage if necessary.