Builder trying to snow us?

[grahamreaper]

I am looking for professional opinions on the subject of a tiled shower. We moved into a new house in September. We have a master bath shower with a fiberglass pan and tiled walls. Earlier this month we discovered mold and a water stain on the outside corner of the pan where it meets the wall with the showerhead. The builder has come out many times and sealed the glass door, caulked the bottom of the tile where it meets the pan (originally they had used grout duh?), and other things, but it still leaks. I can take a spray bottle wet down the wall with the shower head in the bottom corner near the pan, and a minute or two later there is water seeping from behind the pan and appearing on the floor.

Today the builder is bringing over someone "knowledgeable" who has seen this at another home, and he is implying that it is because the grout has not been sealed that it is allowing it to leak through because the grout is porous. Well no duh, that is why there is a moisture barrier and drip edge on the pan.

In you alls professional opinion should a shower leak because the grout has not been sealed, because I have always been told that sealing the grout does not make it waterproof, and the shower should be constructed in such a way that any water getting back there should come out through the weep holes in the pan.

Sorry for the long post, especially since it is my first, but I am just furious that the builder is going to try to put the blame on us for not sealing the grout.

Thanks for all your input.

Renard Graham

[John Bridge]

Welcome aboard, Renard.

I think your builder is merely groping at straws. He just doesn't know what to do.

Here's the problem. The drip edge, as you call it, does not extend all the way to the front of the shower curb. That's the part you step over when entering the shower. The top of it is what the glass enclosure rests on.

Water is somehow getting under the tile, running along the drip thing and then exiting into the wall space at about the point where the shower enclosure abuts the tiled wall. You can't see any of this going on, but that's it. (You can got to Home Depot to see what I'm talking about. The lip stops about an inch and a half back from the front of the receptor.)

The cure will be to clean out all old grout and caulking from the joint between the bottom row of tiles and the shower receptor, AND THEN LET THAT AREA DRY OUT COMPLETELY. It might take two or three days to get all the moisture out of there.

Then seal that joint carefully and thoroughly with silicone caulking and allow it to cure before using the shower.

You can check for pinholes in the grouting, but that's not how the water is getting in there. The shower should be sealed as a matter of course, and this would be a good time to see to that, also.

[grahamreaper]

The tile contractor has already done that. I too thought that is where the leak was so I told them and they removed all the grout ( which shouldn't have been there in the first place as you are well aware, and so was I after reading M Byrne's book) and then they caulked it with a silicone caulking. I didn't have them wait to dry it all out, but we hadn't been using the shower, though now I wish I had made them wait. The only place that they couldn't get to was the spot right behind the frame on the lip. The caulking is continuous now from the frame for the door around the corner and along the ledge, except for the weep hole which were left open.

It still leaks. What else could be causing this? I have told them that I think there is something wrong with the pan at the corner where it goes up the wall behind the tile, of course they don't want to remove the tile because then they are gonna have an impossible time color matching it.
Bottom line I wanted to know if not having sealed the grout is a reason for a shower to leak, and it sounds like you don't believe it is.

Thanks for the reply.

[John Bridge]

Not allowing the joint to completely dry before adding the caulking means that the caulking cannot form a compete watertight bond between the tile and the plastic of the receptor. That's the deal.

There have been cases (you're not alone) where it was necessary to remove the enclosure and a piece of tile in order to stop up the end of the flange (you call it the drip edge). The whole syndrome is intensified if the receptor is not installed absolutely level. You can check this easily with a hand level laid on the horizontal portions of the receptor. If, for example, the receptor is tilted toward the front (where the enclosure is), water that gets up against the flange will head in that direction instead of running back into the shower.

The weep holes you mention are in the bottom rail of the shower enclosure. You do not have any weep holes near the drain, as you would with a ceramic tile floor. Weep holes are not part of the problem here.

One thing is for sure. These things have been in use for decades, and they do work if everybody does his job.

Weekends are a little slow around here, but there will be others who may comment on this.

[grahamreaper]

Thanks, I know these things can work, I just worry that the various contractors (plumbers, tilesetters, shower door guys) all have to do their job right, and so far everybody is just trying to pass the buck. The customer service guy was out today and they now agree with us that it is not the shower door and frame that is leaking.

Back to what I call weep holes. There are dips in the shower pan's receptor that is supposed to let the water that does get back there out, at least thats what we were told. Is this correct? I don't mean in the door track, those I am familiar with, these are actually molded into the shower pan.

At least the builder's rep was able to see what we have duplicated many times with a simple household sprayer and spraying down the wall in the corner.

[Bri]

Hi
No..sealing the tile grout is not the answer. But I did see a similar problem...water was seeping between the glass and the framing and running out on the floor, out the ends of the frame(where there is usually a plastic or metal cap on the ends..inside the edges at the curb on each side of the door.) This channel would fill with water and leak out slowly. Once it got to the level where it was below the hole,it stopped. Then it took very little water to make it over flow again(since it was already full from the last shower. Have they tried putting some silicone on the screw heads?

[Bud Cline]

Look for hairline cracks in the receptor, maybe on the shelf in front of the lip and glass framework.