Leak from bathroom (shower) into kitchen

Anoneemoose

Hi,

We have a leak from our bathroom into the kitchen on one corner. It only happens when someone is in the shower but not every time, so we think it’s potentially the sealant, however we’ve had the bath panel off to see if we can see it dripping (when someone is in the shower and it’s happening) but it’s not obviously coming from anywhere. It’s a shower over a bath. No one takes baths, just showers, so we haven’t yet checked if it does it when the bath has been filled/emptied so we’ll check that as well. 

We’ll replace the sealant but if that doesn’t fix it can anyone suggest how we should start trying to pin down what it could be please. 

This is a picture of the bath and the arrow shows where the water is getting through.

531063

Sprinkle some talc powder around the area you should see a water trail in the talc, also check screw holding waste in bath is tight

Neil49

I've often found that a hinged shower screen with the rubber seal (as pictured) is prone to water seepage around the hinge area. We eventually gave up with ours and used a shower curtain instead. 

Lurcio2019

My parents had a problem with their over bath shower leaking into their kitchen.  They thought that it was because of the shower screen, so they hung a curtain inside the screen too.  Eventually we discovered that the leak was from around the plughole.  We resealed around it and this sorted the problem.

tetrarch

It looks as though your sealant has failed. The best thig to do (in the absence of a fixed screen) is to remove every last scrap of sealant and reapply. The trick is to avoid a scalloped finish but try and do it straight. There are a number of tools on the market, but this is excellent (in my opinion)

https://www.screwfix.com/p/cramer-fugi-profiling-tool-kit-3-piece-set/646fn

and this is simply the best ever video I have seen on siliconing, with some very surprising and non-received-wisdom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DI4hfHM_Hg&t=324s&ab_channel=CharlieDIYte

Regards

Tet

ThisIsWeird

Anoneemoose said:

Hi,

We have a leak from our bathroom into the kitchen on one corner. It only happens when someone is in the shower but not every time, so we think it’s potentially the sealant, however we’ve had the bath panel off to see if we can see it dripping (when someone is in the shower and it’s happening) but it’s not obviously coming from anywhere. It’s a shower over a bath. No one takes baths, just showers, so we haven’t yet checked if it does it when the bath has been filled/emptied so we’ll check that as well. 

We’ll replace the sealant but if that doesn’t fix it can anyone suggest how we should start trying to pin down what it could be please. 

This is a picture of the bath and the arrow shows where the water is getting through.

Remove that panel again, and place sheets of newspaper all under the bath and up that wall.

You seemingly know where the water is coming through into the kitchen ceiling, so if it's coming from that bath - almost certain, since it only occurs during showering - then you should be able to trace it.

There remains, tho', a considerable chance that the leak is taking place under your bathroom floor - ie between that floor and the kitchen ceiling. Could you remove that panel and takes some photos of the plumbing pipes layout, please?

And also a chance that the sealant is failing somewhere away from that corner, and the water is making its way down the wall, through the floorboards, on to the top of the ceiling, and then trickling along the top of the p'board before then coming through where is shows. Ie, the source of the leak isn't necessarily directly above where it comes through the kitchen.

Anoneemoose

@ThisIsWeird thank you. I’ll remove the panel again shortly and take some pictures.

 There has been damp in that corner even before we noticed the dripping into the kitchen..I had the vinyl replaced last year and the the fitter had to replace some of the (ply?)wood that had been put over the floor boards. The curved bit has always been a pain because the panel wouldn’t fit properly once the flooring was down so the floor fitter had to cut along the curve shape in the plywood in order for it to slot in properly, because of that, water has always ended up there, but never leaked until relatively recently. 

I know we should have done something sooner but until it started coming through the ceiling in the kitchen it was a sort of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ thing. Also, my husband isn’t great at DIY so when I bring it up he just sort of shrugs and says “I don’t know” and I end up having to sort it or try and work it out, which isn’t always an easy task with chronic illnesses! 

Thanks also to everyone else!

grumbler

What sort of shower is it?

When I bought my house, there was a leak to the kitchen too. It took long long time  to find out that it was an invisible leak behind the wall tiles. I don't remember all the details, but that was because some lazy idiot tiled the wall around the electric shower.

Anoneemoose

@grumbler - it’s not electric..not sure what type it is but we have a combi boiler and I’ve added some pictures in case it helps. 

I’ve also taken the bath panel off and it’s worse than I thought. I’m as sick as a chip because I know it will be down to me to sort and I haven’t a clue. I’ve added all the pictures I’ve just taken. It really does seem like it’s only this corner that’s affected, though I’ll try the tricks advised to see if shows anything else up. I’ve also just filled the bath halfway and then let it out and it didn’t do it. For info, it mostly happens when the teenagers are in the shower (they take longer usually) but has happened once for me, although not since I’ve started angling the shower head away from the corner and slightly towards the back wall. Me and the kids all use the bottom, smaller shower head. It has never happened for my husband who always uses the top, fixed shower head. The bottom picture shows the curve in the board stuff a bit clearer. 

I’ve looked on the other side of the wall that the pipes are in, as in the bit on the landing and can’t see anything that looks damp. 

This is going to have to be my mission to sort out as I’m concerned about long term damage.

grumbler

It does look like the screen is leaking. And now, with the panel taken out it will be easy to check.

That said, I agree with @Nail49:

Neil49 said:

I've often found that a hinged shower screen with the rubber seal (as pictured) is prone to water seepage around the hinge area. We eventually gave up with ours and used a shower curtain instead. 

Once I tried to stop the leak in one house and it was mission impossible: the bath was installed incorrectly, water getting on the flat side of the bath was leaking towards the edge and the sliding seal under the moving part of the screen is simply incapable of stopping the water flowing outside near the hinge.

Ganga

Anoneemoose said:

@ThisIsWeird thank you. I’ll remove the panel again shortly and take some pictures.

 There has been damp in that corner even before we noticed the dripping into the kitchen..I had the vinyl replaced last year and the the fitter had to replace some of the (ply?)wood that had been put over the floor boards. The curved bit has always been a pain because the panel wouldn’t fit properly once the flooring was down so the floor fitter had to cut along the curve shape in the plywood in order for it to slot in properly, because of that, water has always ended up there, but never leaked until relatively recently. 

I know we should have done something sooner but until it started coming through the ceiling in the kitchen it was a sort of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ thing. Also, my husband isn’t great at DIY so when I bring it up he just sort of shrugs and says “I don’t know” and I end up having to sort it or try and work it out, which isn’t always an easy task with chronic illnesses! 

Thanks also to everyone else!

If your husband is no good at DIY and you are poorly is one of your neigbours not able to help ,what you need to do is dry the area under the bath ( i used my wifes hairdryer to dry out the flooring ) and get someone to lie  down and some one else to spray the suspected area with the shower head ,might take some time to appear so the person lying down should get some thing to lie on rather than the hard floor.