This must be everyone’s nightmare; at least it’s mine. You spend weeks designing your new dream bathroom then you get the contractors in to remodel your bathroom for you. When it’s finished it looks great. It’s everything that you ever wanted and you’re so pleased that you even overpay the contractors. But the first time you use the shower you find water running down the walls of the room below. You have a water leak!
This has happened to me and to so many people I know and it spoils everything because it’s usually a lot harder to put right the mistakes that cause the water leaks than it would have been to avoid them in the first place.
The most common causes of water leaks in a new bathroom design are:
- Bad plumbing
- Faulty seals around bathtub and shower pan
- Badly hung ceramic tiles
So how can you avoid these problems when designing and remodeling your bathroom?
When designing your new bathroom, even if it’s a small bathroom, try to make sure that the plumbing arrangement is as simple as possible. Keep the total length of pipes and the number of joints to a minimum because the leaks will most likely happen at the joints.
Make sure you get a good bathroom plumber to do the work and make sure that every joint he makes is a good one. I like to take pictures with a digital camera of all the plumbing and especially the joints while the work is in progress. By looking at the pictures you can often spot shoddy work and get it fixed before the problems occur. I’ve put some pictures of my bathroom remodeling in progress as an example of this here Pictures of small bathroom during remodeling.
This happened to me. The bathroom was finished and I was thrilled but the moment I turned on the shower I had water pouring out of the wall. To fix it the plumber had to destroy some tiles to get at the faulty joints in the pipes. I wish now that I had asked for access panels to be installed to make it easier to get at the plumbing. It would have cost more but it would have made it a lot easier to fix problems.
This is very common and relatively easy to fix. The problem occurs when the silicon sealer used to stop water from leaking between bathtub or shower and ceramic tiles does not form a proper seal. Water just runs down the tiles, behind the bath and through the floor.
Faulty seals can be caused by surfaces being damp or dirty when the sealer is applied. The seals can also break when the bathtub is filled with water and sinks a little under the weight. When it happens simply cut away all the old sealer, make sure that the surfaces are totally bone dry then half fill the bath with water before applying fresh sealer. Leave the water in the bath until it’s set.
To avoid sealing problems in the first place make sure that your contractors get it right the first time.
Badly hung ceramic tiles
I’ve seen this happen many times, especially in small bathrooms where the shower is over the bathtub. The tiles are fixed incorrectly with a blob of adhesive in the centre of each tile instead of evenly applied to the wall with a notched spreader.
Bathroom Tile Pictures
Small movement of the bathtub causes tiny cracks to appear in the grout between the lower tiles and water leaks in through the crack. The water then runs down the wall behind the ceramic tiles and between the blobs of adhesive straight down into the floor.
The way to avoid this is to make certain that your contractor hangs the tiles properly. Good planning and close supervision is the key to a great bathroom remodel.
Bathroom Tile Pictures
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