Home Improvement

As house problems can manifest in many ways, I recall reading some basic advice “if water is ending up in the wrong place, it’s in the plumber’s domain”.

Exceptionally, if water appears on the ceiling of the top floor, I would skip the plumber and call a roofer. But what about showers?

This is a bit of a mystery:

A shower is leak is manifesting two rooms away from the shower. It’s clear that the shower is the source of the leak because water only leaks when the shower is running. The plumber claims to have fixed the drain pipework. But it still leaks, just at a very slight trickle or drip. So apparently the pipework was leaky and the fact that it’s significantly less water leaking means there is still another problem. Plumber made a 2nd visit and claims the new pipework is solid up to and including the drain, and makes a vague statement: “replace the shower pan”. When someone stands on the showerpan while showering, water leaks at a higher rate. The shower pan flexes when standing on it, which suggests that maybe the bedding is rotted wood due to the leak. We put wood planks on the shower pan to prevent the showerpan from flexing while showering. That reduces the leak. But the leak is still there. I wonder if water is hitting the outside of the drain pipe and clinging to the drain pipe due to water tension, and running along the outside of the pipe until the pipe takes a turn 2 rooms over. I can only guess.

The shower pan itself has no holes. We will redo the silicon caulking around it in case the leak is around the sides.

Anyway, I don’t want to get too far off into woods with speculation. I’m mainly just trying to work out: is the plumber competent? Are plumbers expected to accurately diagnose this sort of thing? Or are plumbers only responsible for pipework and water penetrating walls and showerpans is beyond their expertise?

It’s hard to find good plumbers and I wonder whether I should call this plumber back in the future.