Service
Shower Leak Repair
Finding where a shower is leaking, since the pipework is innocent more often than not and the cause is grout, a pan or a waste seal.
- Licensed and insured
- Price agreed before work
- A plumber who works your area
Test them apart
A shower has four possible leak sources within a few square feet, and using the shower normally tests all four at once, which tells you nothing.
Separating them is simple.
Flood the tray. Block the waste, stand water in the pan, leave it. No water touches the walls and nothing is flowing through the pipes. A leak now is the pan or the waste seal.
Spray the walls. Run water on the walls with the tray draining freely, so nothing stands anywhere. A leak now is the grout or the enclosure seals.
Watch when nothing is running. A leak that continues with the shower off is supply pipework, which is under pressure all the time.
Half an hour of this saves opening a wall on a guess.
The pipework is often innocent
It is worth saying plainly: most shower leaks are not plumbing failures.
Grout is porous, and cracked grout at the base of an enclosure lets a great deal of water through over the course of a year. If there is no waterproofing membrane behind the tile, that water goes into the structure.
A failed pan does the same from below.
Both produce exactly the pattern people assume means a burst pipe: damp appearing after showering, a stain spreading in the ceiling. The pipes are sound and inspecting them finds nothing, which is why these leaks often go unresolved for years while the wrong thing gets investigated.
Does this sound familiar?
Problems this service solves
- Damp in the ceiling below a shower
- Flooring lifting outside the shower enclosure
- Water appearing only after the shower is used
- Cracked or missing grout at the base of the enclosure
- A shower pan or tray that has failed
Signs you need shower leak repair
If more than one of these is true, the problem is usually past the point a plunger or a store-bought cleaner will fix.
- The ceiling below stains after showering
- The floor outside the enclosure is soft or lifting
- Grout at the base is cracked or has fallen out
- There is a persistent smell of damp near the shower
What to expect
How the visit works
Test the four sources separately
Supply, waste, enclosure and pan each leak under different conditions, and testing them one at a time is what avoids opening the wrong thing.
Flood test the pan
Blocking the waste and standing water in the tray tests the pan alone, with no water touching the walls or the pipework.
Spray test the walls
Running water on the walls without filling the tray tests the grout and the seals, isolating the enclosure from everything else.
Repair what actually failed
Pipework is repaired, seals and grout renewed, and where the pan itself has failed you are told plainly what that involves.
What's included
What you get on every job, whoever we send.
- Four sources tested separately rather than assumed
- A flood test that isolates the pan
- A spray test that isolates the grout and seals
- Honest answers when the repair is not a plumbing repair
Questions
Shower Leak Repair questions
How do you tell a pipe leak from a grout problem?
By testing them separately, which is straightforward once you know how. Block the waste and stand water in the tray without running the shower: that tests the pan and the waste seal alone, since no water touches the walls. Then run water on the walls with the tray draining freely: that tests the grout and the seals with nothing standing anywhere. A pipe leak, by contrast, will usually show whether the shower is being used or not.
Can grout really cause that much damage?
Yes. Grout is porous and cracked grout is worse, and a shower puts a lot of water against those walls every day. Water passing through reaches whatever is behind, and if there is no waterproofing membrane there, it goes into the structure. Because it happens gradually and only during use, it is often blamed on plumbing for years. The pipework is perfectly sound and the shower is the source.
What does it mean if the shower pan has failed?
That the tray or the waterproofing beneath the tiled floor of the enclosure is letting water through, and it is the more serious finding. A pan failure usually cannot be repaired from above in any lasting way, because the failure is in a layer beneath the finished surface. It generally means taking up the shower floor and rebuilding it with proper waterproofing. That is worth knowing accurately before anyone starts, which is what the flood test establishes.
Related services
Shower Repair
Repairing showers that drip, run cold, lose pressure or leak into the structure, which are four faults with four different causes.
See what this coversBathroom Leak Repair
Finding and fixing bathroom leaks, including the ones that are not plumbing at all: failed grout, a bad pan, or a toilet seal letting water past.
See what this coversCeiling Leak Repair
Tracing and repairing water coming through a ceiling, where the stain is rarely above the leak and the source may not be a pipe at all.
See what this coversWater Heater Repair
Diagnosis and repair of gas, electric and tankless water heaters, including no-hot-water calls, leaks, pilot problems and sediment flushing.
See what this covers
Get it fixed
Shower Leak Repair, handled locally
Call with your ZIP code and what you are seeing. We route you to a licensed plumber in your area who does shower leak repair every week.
- Licensed and insured
- Answered 24/7
- Price before work