rayoflight
New Member
Thanks for this forum and the generous advice from everybody. A question about shower leak:
These 3 pics are from a second floor bathroom. There is a leak into the ceiling of room below. Through a lot of aggravating effort I have isolated source to the corner where the tile, shower door, and tub meet. Long story, but it seems the leak is not a plumbing issue and rather a leak from the structure.
See close up pic of the bottom rail of the door, with an obvious gap between the rail and tub.
Some questions:
- What gives this door structural strength? Is the rail screwed into the acrylic tub and/or wall? The rail is flush with the tub along the whole length, except at the location of the photo where there is a gap. Is it possible that a screw has loosened and allowed the rail to lift? Or perhaps has been like this since install (~10 years ago)? Latter seems more likely to me since rest of caulking along wall is intact and no indications of shifting. After spraying water directly into this gap and observing leak rate in room below it seems obvious to me that there is some penetration into the tub under this rail or into the wall, and combined with the gap is allowing water in. Am I correct or have I missed something? FYI, water is not getting through to the other side of the rail (toward the toilet). The toilet side is dry.
- Tile grouting seems to have good integrity. I guess it is possible though at this exact location that there is a pinpoint grout integrity issue, maybe due to the bottom rail being screwed into the tile there?
- Would an acceptable fix be just caulking the gap? Anything more would require removing and replacing the whole door system. What do the pros advise?
Thanks for your help!
These 3 pics are from a second floor bathroom. There is a leak into the ceiling of room below. Through a lot of aggravating effort I have isolated source to the corner where the tile, shower door, and tub meet. Long story, but it seems the leak is not a plumbing issue and rather a leak from the structure.
See close up pic of the bottom rail of the door, with an obvious gap between the rail and tub.
Some questions:
- What gives this door structural strength? Is the rail screwed into the acrylic tub and/or wall? The rail is flush with the tub along the whole length, except at the location of the photo where there is a gap. Is it possible that a screw has loosened and allowed the rail to lift? Or perhaps has been like this since install (~10 years ago)? Latter seems more likely to me since rest of caulking along wall is intact and no indications of shifting. After spraying water directly into this gap and observing leak rate in room below it seems obvious to me that there is some penetration into the tub under this rail or into the wall, and combined with the gap is allowing water in. Am I correct or have I missed something? FYI, water is not getting through to the other side of the rail (toward the toilet). The toilet side is dry.
- Tile grouting seems to have good integrity. I guess it is possible though at this exact location that there is a pinpoint grout integrity issue, maybe due to the bottom rail being screwed into the tile there?
- Would an acceptable fix be just caulking the gap? Anything more would require removing and replacing the whole door system. What do the pros advise?
Thanks for your help!
