sunken tiled showers leak

[deluca5]

Hi Stephanie,
You are spot on when you say we still have to determine where the water is coming. I also see that there is another woman as patient as I am somewhere in these U.S. You are correct in assuming the leak detector pressure tested our sewer lines. The plumbers also repeated the pressure tests of the sewer lines and also "pressure tested" the shower plumbing by capping the shower head and turning on the valve. They also cut the hot water lines that ran through the slab after the jackhammered the hole in the LR floor. Before I even called a plumber I put a party balloon in the drain and ran about 4 in. of water into the shower, marked the water level, waited till morning and checked the water line...NO water loss... This was repeated by one plumber and the leak expert..If Royce is right, and I believe he is...we don't have a shower pan (See Royce above) and therefore no shower pan leak...

THis whole business of ground water is something we have thought about but are clueless about how to investigate....We have lived here three years but I don't have any connections...We had a situation like yours in a home we built in Pittsburgh, but the contractor that was building our house did something to divert the underground water...put French drains in and out of the basement etc... but can't do that here in N. Florida to a house on a slab...we have lawn drains on one side of this house...put in by a previous owner, according to our neighbor, so maybe there was a problem in the past...

[deluca5]

We have had two days of torrential rains and I checked the jacked hole in the LR as was suggested---we now have standing water in the jacked hole which was dry when the plumber pulled out the jacked slab. As you remember, the plumber broke through the visqueen barrier when he jackhammered the hole.

So as Royce and Stepanie suggested, we definitely have a high water table under the house.

I think now that we have a combination of problems: high water table as suggested, AND, as Royce suggested, something (perhaps wood shower framing) that is wicking up water along the showers' outline. You can see in the photos of the LR slab that the moisture line (dark line) in the LR follows the outline of the sunken shower.

This sound like a whole lot bigger problem than demolishing and replacing a couple of showers. If anyone has a clue about how to approach this problem I will be forever grateful.

Thank you all again for helping me to try to pinpoint our problem.

[sdk]

I put a party balloon in the drain and ran about 4 in. of water into the shower, marked the water level, waited till morning and checked the water line...NO water loss... This was repeated by one plumber and the leak expert..If Royce is right, and I believe he is...we don't have a shower pan (See Royce above) and therefore no shower pan leak...

Well, if you don’t have a shower pan you are correct it is not leaking- but it’s not leaking only because it’s not there! Not having a shower pan at all is tantamount to having a pan with holes all over it. That is to say, the function of the pan is to direct any water that seeps through the tile & grout to the drain. Assuming you have no pan, any water that seeps through the tile will go wherever gravity happens to take it- and that probably won’t be the drain. Take a look at the shower construction info in the Liberry, it will help you get a grasp on the functions of the different parts of a shower.

Now, if you flood tested the shower and lost no water then that means something is holding the water in- a pan, the tile/grout, something. It’s also possible the test wasn’t viable, maybe it didn’t sit long enough, the water wasn’t high enough, I am speaking outside my expertise here, but my point is there may be confounding variables that need to be considered. If you do not have a pan then I suspect you are incurring water in the area both from the shower as well as ground water.

You can further test the integrity of the shower by starting to use it again while keeping an eye on the hole in the slab. Of course, the drier the hole is when you start the more valid the test will be. If it were me this would be my next step, mostly b/c I would want to know if the shower were leaking; however, it may be a moot point. If water is pooling under the shower, even if it’s not coming from the shower, you may have to remove the shower to remediate.

IF the design of the house, ie sunken shower, is the root of the problem AND you want to have wood flooring (it sounds like carpet can handle dissipation of the moisture) I would suggest you have a soil engineer evaluate the situation. You may (really outside my expertise here) be able to remove the sunken shower, fill in the low spot, remove any wood/ forms left in place, patch the vapor barrier (?), and rebuild the shower level with the slab- with a proper pan and waterproofing. This would require breaking out the concrete under the shower and re-pouring the slab. Slabs can be joined together with an injected epoxy, it’s done frequently here where our soil often causes slabs to crack. I do not know if the epoxy injection is water proof or not, you may still end up needing some type of surface vapor barrier to protect your wood. Also, concrete is porus and can in itself wick moisture. A soil engineer would be a good step at this point since you know, definitively, that ground water is pooling in this area.

[scuttlebuttrp]

Jessica,
I'm working on a remodel in Arlington. The job is being run by a freind of the owner and he's an engineer. I asked him about your issue and he's thinking that your having percolation. Basically when your barrier is intact, your house is kinda floating. When you poke a hole in it the water is gathering to and coming up at the hole(s), or percolating there. He also agreed that there's a good chance that the form boards are there wicking water.
His solution was tear out the shower, jackhammer concrete, fix vapor barrier, dowel into slab with rebar, pour new concrete, rebuild shower.
I know essentially what was already said, but he said that he feels this would definitely fix your problem, something noone here including myself wanted to go out on a limb and say. He seems pretty smart. Hope this gives some reassurance.

[deluca5]

Hi Royce,
Sorry I missed your important post. We have been out in the yard for 4 days pulling weeds, rearranging 12 yards of mulch and a yard of topsoil, and putting down landscape fabric, while trying to beat out the storm. I had visions of the stuff running into the gutter and blowing around the neighborhood.

I wasn't aware that there was a way to get to the form boards even if we demolished the shower. Good to know. I feel better knowing that we can get to the root of the problem and not end with with a glamorous new shower and a continuing problem in the LR. And when the shower in the second bath started displaying similar symptoms, we were convinced there was a common underlying problem. We bought the house in June, but didn't move from PA until August. When we first moved into the house, I called the inspector back because I smelled a slight musty smell in the kitchen and the living room...both adjacent to showers. That was also during the rainy season. The inspector found nothing, but he was looking around the windows!!!

Please thank the engineer for the free advice. And thank you again for hanging in there for us. I have one more question: who does this kind of work? It sounds like a humongous and very messy job. Do I need to hire more than one type of contractor?

[scuttlebuttrp]

The form boards, if they're there, are accessible when they build these houses. But sometimes they're just stuck in the concrete and too difficult to remove, or they wait too long to come back and the framers have built their walls on top of the forms.and they just don't feel like trying to remove them. Either way, the holes are already there at this point.
When the deck mud is removed, if they're there, you will have access to them.
I would assume that a GC would handle all this and know how, or know who does. I know a couple of good ones but one might be retired. I'll call them and see if they're interested in working with you on this. If they are I'll PM their numbers to you.