Help!! Leaking shower

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Lovejoy

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Hi all.
I am in desperate need of help. My husband is a carpenter (master) by trade and incredibly good at what he does......most of the time.
He built a shower for me. He put down rubber sheet on floor and poured concrete on top of that. He got plenty of slope in it ( I think), but the damn thing leaks in one corner. I have done everything I can think of to do. Specialty sealers, swimming pool stuff over grout. It will stop it for a short while, and it starts again.
I mentioned recently having a professional come in and re-do it. He hit the roof. But its been leaking for a couple of years, it's going to turn into a major issue at some point if not already!
I can't get him to re-do it. I guess he does it all day and doesn't want to come home and do it.
I need something that I can do to fix it.
I have been researching epoxy waterproof coatings etc. I don't have to re-do the whole shower do I? I'm not physically able to do that. I'm hoping to find something that I can get in a color to somewhat match my tile in shower and basically paint it on shower floor and maybe 8-10" up the wall. He also built a seat in it for me.
Please help! I can use his shower to allow mine to dry completely, I just NEED - want to get this fixed.
I did try a clear coating of some type he brought home, its awful. Makes my tiles look stained with soap scum and I've been working to get that all off. Have a ways to go yet.
I am disabled and it takes me a while to get things done, but I really want to fix this. Any suggestions???
 

Cacher_Chick

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We do not know what he did in the construction of the shower, but if the pan is not waterproof or the attachment between the pan and drain was not made correctly, the only right thing to do is to cut it out and rebuild it.
 

hj

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Putting a rubber sheet on the floor and pouring concrete over it, leaves us open to many interpretations, few of them good. We don't know whether the leak is inside the shower, on the floor outside, or into a crawl space so no way to tell you what to do.
 

Jadnashua

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If the waterproofing is literally flat on the floor without being sloped to the drain, it is not done per any plumbing codes! The tile is not the waterproof layer, it's the liner. That MUST be installed, sloped to the drain since moisture WILL get beneath the tile and needs a way to drain out.

Without more details, it's impossible to tell what else may be wrong. A common error is how the curb is wrapped. There should be no fasteners except outside of the shower. Also, there should be no fasteners below 2" above the top of the curb. To get the liner over the curb watertight, you typically need to buy curb corners and glue them on to seal the cut you must make to wrap the liner out over the curb.
 

Lovejoy

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Tearing the shower out is not an option. I can do lots of things, but not that. I am assuming, knowing my husband, the rubber sheet is flat on the floor and I know for fact it goes 6" up the wall. The concrete is sloped to the center drain. But I believe it is leaking from the front corner, thru the concrete and the rubber onto the bathroom floor. I have been under the house, I have cut the wall out to make sure no leaks in the water supply.
And being as how I live in Kansas, there are no plumbing "codes" where I live.
So, as I asked in my original post, is there a coating, epoxy, poly, some kind of pour on, brush on, or spray coating that will hold up a few years? I am female, and disabled, and I can do most things, except build.
And please, I am not an idiot. I am a major DIY. I can fix anything correctly ( except electrical) and that includes cars. so, as I said, tearing it out is NOT an option.
simply because I no longer have the physical strength to do so.
Help me out here, please!!!
 
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Jadnashua

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FWIW, while you may not have a local inspector...every state DOES have codes that are supposed to be followed! Some people hate them, but if you do have a good one, they can prevent this type of problem.

There isn't any reliable topical solution to your problem that I'm aware of, but then, I'm just one guy. There may be a waterproofing material you could paint on, but it wouldn't likely last a real long time or look great.
 

Jadnashua

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The hassle is, none of the waterproofing systems are designed to be a wear surface...IOW, they are designed to have something like tile installed on top of them. While you could use one of them, it would be hard to clean and would wear out. What could work would be to build a new shower inside of the existing one. This would require you to chip out around the drain to replace it with one designed for a surface waterproofing membrane. Schluter makes a clamping drain retrofit drain that would be sealed to the bottom of the existing clamping drain, so you'd only need to unscrew it once you had enough removed to gain access to it. Then, you could put a surface waterproofing system on top of the existing tile and bond it to the new drain, then install new tile. This would obviously make the shower slightly smaller and the curb taller by the height of the new tile, but probably not a major issue. You MIGHT need a trim extension kit for the shower valve if that extra layer made the trim and handle too short. If you're lucky, the manufacturer still makes them for the one you have, but you may not need one.

Shower waterproofing is in the guts of the shower...there is no good topical way to seal it up without some extra work. Not what you wanted to hear.

Grout sealant does not make grout waterproof, it helps to make cleaning it easier. Even if only a tablespoon of water gets underneath the tile with each shower that doesn't evaporate, eventually with a pan flat on the floor, it will fill up and if there are any imperfections in its installation, leak out. Replacing the grout is a major effort, but replacing it with an epoxy grout might help. The stuff is not inexpensive, and may not solve your problems, either.
 
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