Shower Drain Leaking

[MasterPlumbersKeymaster]

I have a 3 3 stand alone fiberglass shower unit. About 6 months ago I noticed a stain in the ceiling on the first floor below the shower. I unthreaded the shower drain…..cleaned all the soggy plumbers putty from the drain, seal, and shower unit, etc. The putty was all slimmy….like it had been sucking up water for years.
When cleaning the bottom side of the shower unit I noticed it was real rough. What it looks like is when the hole was drilled….several places around the hole splintered out….like when you drill a hole thru wood and the back side splinters out. That’s what the bottom of my shower looks/feels like. I think that’s why the plumbers putty was used there.

I bought a new drain/seal to thread in the bottom of the shower….I put some silicone between the gasget and the bottom of the shower…..hoping the silicone would seal the splintered out areas. The gasget alone would never seal the splintered areas. I just noticed the ceiling was getting wet again.

I’m going to cut a hole in my ceiling to see for sure….but I’m pretty sure that’s what’s causing the problem.

How am I going to seal that rough surface? I thought about trying to putty the bottom of the shower and sanding it smooth. Or using epoxy.

What are your thought?

[smcelheParticipant]

I think the drain is a bad setup……….The drain pipe has the female end…..the gasget goes between the pipe and the bottom of the shower. The male threads into the female squeezing the pipe to the bottom of the shower. There is no seal between the male piece and the top of the shower. Water can get between the two.

I did notice that there were sections of threads missing on the male piece. I assumed that was to let any water that gets between the male piece and shower to run down into the drain. That probably works well until the threads get clogged and the water can’t find one of the groves cut in the threads…..then it pushes out between the rubber gasget and the bottom of the shower.

Guess it wouldn’t push out if the bottom of my shower was smooth and the gasget could seal it.

It sure would be nice if the drain was molded into the bottom of the shower…..just glue the pipe to it….no fittings to deal with.

Not happy having to tear out my ceiling.

[DUNBARParticipant]

To make life easier, and down the road, I would suggest replacement of the shower pan.

Might seem like alot of work, but it sounds like you inherited a major problem with the quality of the pan, and someday, it will be replaced anyway.

[smcelheParticipant]

Thanks for the reply…..

It’s a one piece shower unit……

Would I have to replace the entire thing?

[DUNBARParticipant]

Well, in that case, thinking it was just a pan, you might want to consider using the same product the fiberglass unit is made of, which is fiberglass.

You can use this product bought at any auto parts establishment that has fiberglass repair kits.

This product is tuff as nails and could very easily repair this unit by completely creating a new smooth surface at bottom of unit. I have in my years in the profession of plumbing repaired holes in fiberglass and either covering up units with holes in them with add-on items such as soap dishes or other items.

This would be my next best suggestion. That fiberglass repair kits are actually tougher than the product you are working on.

[Author]

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