Leaking Shower Surround

[clyde fernandes]

I recently bought a house and the previous owner installed a one piece shower surround. I have used it twice, and both times water has leaked out under the shower pan. The water leaked into the bathroom as well as under the wall into the kitchen on the other side of the wall. I discovered that the person who installed the surround did not put plumbers putty around the drain, and that is most certainly the source of the leak. My question is, should I remove the surround to allow the concrete subfloor and 2×4 footer to dry (I have a slab foundation) or can I just let it dry for a couple of weeks and then properly install the drain? Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[Retired plbg1Participant]

How about the drywall take the wet stuff down and let it dry that way are you will have a start of mold. How do you know the strainer is leaking, try some egg dye and dump a bucket of that in sh. and see if it comes out, sometimes those wrap arounds are poorly installed and leak. See what you can do with a wetdry vac.

[nicktheplumberParticipant]

The problem is that you really don’t know for sure where the leak is coming from. It could be from the underpan drain connections or it could be from leaks through the shower wall/pan junction, or even from the supply line to the shower head above the diverter valve. There are various ways you could logically determine just where the leak is, but you really have to understand plumbing to do so, and if you did, you wouldn’t be asking this question in the first place.

NtP

[ChipCarlborg1Participant]

First off, I know it is not the shower pan itself or the riser coming from the diverter. I capped off the shower head and turned on the diverter for 1 hour with no problems. I know it’s not the shower/pan junction because it is a one piece unit. I know where the leak came from, after all, plumbing is a pretty cut and dry field. What I was not sure about is if I should rip out the surround to dry out the subfloor and footers, or would it be OK to fix the leak and get back to using the shower.

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