Help! Tiled wetroom floor looks perfect but grout doesn't dry out!

[Kris Farquhar]

Hey guys , this is my first post here , I'm not a tiler but Infact a plumber, Dan kindly popped this post over onto the plumber forum for us to have a look through,
When I first startling reading the thread I thought it might've been a bad bit of grout not in being laid bad but a slight imperfection in the batch , ( small part )
If it was the drain or the shower because the floor is probably well sealed then I'd've thought the shadows would've spread with usage, I have seen water travel great lengths through tiles b4 protruding up through the cracks but don't think it in this case ,
There must be couple badly sealed parts now that your seeing evidence from your screen side,

 

[Kris Farquhar]

Sorry, Paula do u have any pics of the screen leak and the shower set up many thanks ,, kris

 

[Kris Farquhar]

I take it you think that now that it's sealed near the drain that the next available exit point is near the screen ??

 

[Dan]

Thanks for popping over Kris!

 

[Paula]

I take it you think that now that it's sealed near the drain that the next available exit point is near the screen ??

Hi Kris, thanks very much for looking at this! As you can see, this is a long-running saga....first noticed dark patches on the grout in the actual shower cubicle (well, behind the single glass sheet separating the shower area from the rest of the wet room) almost as soon as we started using the new shower a year ago. They didn't ever really dry out, and so, having taken advice from the lovely members of this forum, my tiler scraped out the grout, flooded the joints with more adhesive (in case there were gaps where the water was accumulating under the tiles) and then re-grouted with waterproof epoxy. Now the actual shower area looks fine (epoxy doesn't show wet patches!), but the dark patches have spread beyond the shower area (ie. beyond the screen) where, of course, the grout is the original, cementitious grout. To be honest there was a small amount of creeping here before we did the epoxy, but it is now much worse, almost as if as the water can't evaporate in the actual shower area, it is travelling further to areas where it can evaporate through the cementitious grout (ie. beyond the shower screen).

We have sealed the shower screen with mastic, but the join between the waste and the tiles is very small, and the tiler did his best to scrape out all the old grout and replace with epoxy, but there are still some tiny bits of old grout there (see the picture I posted above). So I suppose water could be seeping through somehow at this join, but surely this would always happen in a wet room situation, as most people don't use epoxy? Yes, you are right, the next exit point is the screen, but this sits on the tiles and we have put mastic all round, so it's hard to see how water is getting in. I'll post a couple of pictures of the bathroom set up so you can see what's happening. Any advice gratefully received!

 

[The D]

i will put £10.00 on it being a leak from the shower control. any takers ??

 

[The D]

by the way your bathroom is lovely

 

[Dan]

i will put £10.00 on it being a leak from the shower control. any takers ??

I'm starting to think it's the only option to be honest.

 

[Paula]

by the way your bathroom is lovely

Ah, thanks! That was the idea...but I must admit I haven't been able to enjoy it properly due to all this. Every time I go in there my eyes are drawn to the damp patches on the floor!

I'm grateful to everyone for all their help so far. Hopefully we'll be able to find a solution (and this will be of some help to others who may come across this situation in the future....).

It's a Crosswater valve, by the way.

 

[Paula]

Well anything is possible, this is just a slight variation on what Geoff suggested, now I've read it sorry Geoff
But if u can take the water away from the shower and it reappears hopefully that should point to it being a problem on the feed side.

If not, it's either getting thro tiles during use, or the drain could be failing.

I'd leave it running a fair while in case it has to build up somewhere first.

Yes, I will do that. We'll leave it until the weekend to dry out as much as it can, and then try and do what you said. . But I suppose it could be a leak from either of the shower heads, or the valve itself? We had an excellent plumber put it all in, so I doubt it's faulty workmanship on his part....but you never know. Or it could be a problem with the equipment.

Thanks for the suggestion, and I'll let you know what happens!

 

[Paula]

i will put £10.00 on it being a leak from the shower control. any takers ??

By the way what did you think of the picture of the waste I posted? Do you think it could be leaking around the join between the metal and the tiles?

 

[padtheplumber]

Do you know what type of pipework was used for the installation to the shower & heads, ie copper / soldered or plastic / pushfit? Is there any access behind the valve, like an airing cupboard - somewhere a hole could be cut in a stud wall to check for leaks? Can the cover plate for the shower be removed?
These are the sorts of things I'd be looking at first if I had been called out to investigate for a leak.
Looks like a nice job by the way

 

[Paula]

It's possible I think yeah.

It's starting to get quite hard for us to troubleshoot because we're just winging it a bit here.

Do you think it's worth getting a plumber in to actually take a look. They see this all the time I'm sure. Or even a tiler, but I can't see how, until we've found out what's going on, a tiler can actually trace the leak if he's not a plumber.

By all means keep contributing to the thread and maybe we will pull this off for you.

But consider getting a plumber round! I'm sure this must be doing your tree in!

Yes, I agree! And yes, this is sending me bananas, but I need to find out why the bathroom is not working as it should do, having gone to so much effort and expense to build it (it was part of a new extension on our house). You guys have been so helpful, I am really grateful for all the advice you are giving me. So far we've had a grout 'expert' from Bal, the tiler who did the work and our builder round, but nobody seems to want to sort the issue, and I get the impression that they think in the end I will just give up and go away! From what you are all saying, this situation is obviously not 'normal' for wet rooms (I don't know as we've never had one before). It's spoiling the look of our lovely new bathroom and possibly storing up problems for the future, so I feel it needs resolving.

We'll not use the shower, as you suggest, and carry out tests, and then if it looks like a problem on the feed side, I'll get the plumber who put it in to have a look.

 

[Paula]

Do you know what type of pipework was used for the installation to the shower & heads, ie copper / soldered or plastic / pushfit? Is there any access behind the valve, like an airing cupboard - somewhere a hole could be cut in a stud wall to check for leaks? Can the cover plate for the shower be removed?
These are the sorts of things I'd be looking at first if I had been called out to investigate for a leak.
Looks like a nice job by the way

Thanks! I think the pipework up in the loft feeding the shower is plastic, but when it gets to the bathroom it's copper, and definitely copper at the valve. No, it's an outside wall, but the cover plate for the valve can be removed. We'll try to run the shower in to the bath, without going down the drain, and see if the water still appears, as has been suggested. Then if it does I'll get the plumber who fitted it back.

Thanks for your help!

 

[padtheplumber]

Also double check the Silicon sealant around the shower area, it can look fine, but I've seen it happen before when you get up close you can get a thumbnail under it where it hasn't quite taken to the tiles.