Walk in shower - 3 years old - leaks into room below after a long shower. New caulk did not solve problem. Poured 3 buckets of water down drain but did not cause leak. Leaks only when taking a shower. Where do I look for the problem without having to rip up the shower walls (vinyl) or the floor?
As a contractor i can tell you the shower pan has failed and has to be replace which means the ceramic or marble or what ever is on the walls at least 16" up to do so-you can install lower with some other color ceramic if you cant find exact match-its not something you can do unless you know how or a pro
Water leaks into room below most likely is caused by water ingress from damaged caulking between tiles.
For big water leaks, better look for other root causes. For example, my walk-in shower room wall installed with 4 Hangsgrohe bodyspray heads (BODYSPRAY, AKTIVA, ITEM SKU: 28451821). These bodyspray shutoff valve is independent of shower head shutoff valve. So shower head works fine. But when bodyspray shutoff valve is turned on, water leaks heavily like waterfall into below living room. I cut out wet damaged sheetrock of the ceiling from the living room and found the leak was from one of the 4 spray heads. Overhauling the suspected bobyspray turned out its coupling was loose and nozzle holes was partially blocked by calcium buildup, which caused water to go back into the wall. It's considered design defect as the bobyspray coupling may lose once got whacked for whatever reason.
I would unscrew shower head pipe and either pipe dope it or tefilon the threads and then reinstall it. I would also take the handle(s) rosettes off and look for a leak from there with a flashlight, while shower is on. I believe the most comon leak for walk in showers are the door seals. Are you sure it is not coming out from under the door? Another test that yuo may want to preform is to Stopper the drain, fill the shower pan with water and watch for bubbles, or look for leaks from below.
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Is this a tiled shower or a moulded plastic shower? If it is tiled, then the grout may be cracked maybe at the floor wall joint if your house is settling. You may need to strip caulk, buy a little $4 bag of grout and repair the grout.
If this is a plastic molded unit, then where did you replace the caulk? The most common cause of shower leaks is because the installer did not caulk around the Hold/Cold lever(s). Splash 3 buckets of water against the hot /cold controls. If no leak here then there may be a crack in plastic somewhere. Is the shower against an outside wall in a very cold part of the country? Is there a warrantee on the shower if you bought it? Check with manufacturer. If no luck then call a good plumber.
It's weird that adding new caulk didn't solve the leaking problem. My shower is leaking into the garage in the floor below, but I haven't tried caulking it yet. I might try that, but it might be faster for both of us to hire a plumber to take care of the problem.http://bodenplumbing.net/services
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