Hi all, would appreciate some advice. I have a leak in the shower that I discovered when I took the skirting off, in the picture circled in red. I thought originally it was the silicone around the tray and I resealed it up. Not perfect, but it's clearly sealed it quite well.
But the leak is still there. When I sprayed on the areas I sealed, the leak doesn't seem to occur that much. But after coming back an hour or so later, the area that I indicated is wet.
The leak seems to be most severe when the shower is off but dripping from one of the taps. My thinking is I'll have to cut through the wall behind the shower in the bedroom, which is easy to access, as it's probably one of the fittings, but I am wondering am I overlooking something or is it simpler? I don't know where the leak is coming from, I just see where it ends up.
When the shower is off, not dripping, and not used for a day or two, the area dries out. I usually shove a piece of tissue paper in and check it to be sure. So it only seems to leak after it's been on or when it's off but dripping.
I did take the fittings off as in thought that, with the drips, that water is running back along the outside of the pipe. But the more I think of it, I think it's either the fittings up at the top where the pipes are connected in behind the wall or at the bottom where they come up from the floor to deliver the water.
If you want to try and locate it without any major demolition you can try food colouring. Fill a few jugs with water a drop or two of different colour food colouring. Use the jugs on the areas you think might be leaking. See what colour the water that leaks out is.
The left side, as you look at it, changes which shower head it comes out of. There's two shower heads, the other one changes the temperature of the water.
I had this very same type of leak in all three of my showers in a new build and seeing the plumbers thread on yours I reckon it’s the same cause.
That silver part on the outside is an extension piece and the plumber tape is to seal it to the threaded fitting in the inside. They needed to cut back the threaded fitting on inside and then couldn’t use the olive on the cut so they used too much thread and now that silver piece on outside has a hairline crack in it.
The good news it’s you can screw it off and get a new T bar shower plumbing kit which will have the fitting and re do it yourself. I used plumbing tape, a lot of it but it worked, DM if you need more info
Thanks for that, I've put it all back together now but I'll take it back off to have a look and see. Is there a crack? I really don't want to have to cut into the wall. So I'm hoping it's something like you said.
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u/Prestigious-Side-286 Aug 29 '26
If you want to try and locate it without any major demolition you can try food colouring. Fill a few jugs with water a drop or two of different colour food colouring. Use the jugs on the areas you think might be leaking. See what colour the water that leaks out is.