Rotted overflow/drain on tub

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joe71nj

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Hi. Is it possible to change a rotted overflow on a tub without any access from underneath or from the other side of the wall? Can it be fixed if tile is removed on the wall above the drain? This tub is an old building on a slab and it's also back to back with another bathroom. All they have is a chase in between the two bathrooms for pipes etc. I just renovated my bathroom and once my new tub etc was installed, we noticed the bathtub on the opposite side had a rotted overflow pipe right where it hooks up to the drain. There was no way to get to it from my side by that point. Will they have to rip apart the bathroom and pull out the tub to fix that?
 
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Is it possible to change a rotted overflow on a tub without any access from underneath or from the other side of the wall?
No.

Can it be fixed if tile is removed on the wall above the drain?
No.

I just renovated my bathroom
Stop putting tubs back to back. That was a mistake.

Will they have to rip apart the bathroom and pull out the tub to fix that?
Yes.

Look on the bright side, you will never made a decision like this again in your life.
 

joe71nj

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It wasn't my decision. I live in a complex built in the 70's and this is how they built them. They did this kind of stuff a lot in the old days, stupidly. The tub with this problem is my neighbor's tub on the other side of the wall. I hate to break this bad news to them. I'm not sure how long it's been rotted and the water has just been leaking down into the ground underneath.... but I'm not sure that I want to say nothing and let that keep going on.
 
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Well you may want to consider the fact that since you were the last one to open the common wall for a new bathroom, you were the one that disturbed it, so you are the one responsible to fix it. I mean, that's how it might look like if things got legal.

Good luck, and please let us know what happens, this is very exciting (for the readers anyways).
 

Smooky

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Do you have access in the pipe chase? The owner of the unit has access to the inside. I would think it is a fairly easy fix if that is in fact the case.
 

joe71nj

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There's a chase though. I never touched their wall. There's about a 6" space between their wall and my wall... and you can see that the leak didn't just start. There's a big spot that's rotted out on the side of the pipe and you can see where the water has been hitting the dirt. As far as access to the chase goes, the only way to get access to the chase from the other apartment is to remove tile. Well... they can take the vanity out which is just about butted up to the tub. They're very tight bathrooms. If they made an opening there, do you think they could reach in from the side and replace it that way? I'm assuming that it would still be hard to actually get to the drain that way. The complex itself actually rents this unit out...it's not owned by anyone like I own mine. I'm trying to save them from having to rip the tub and disturb everything.
 

Smooky

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I don't know, you're there what do you think? While you were renovating your bathroom would have been a good time to say something to the management. Then they could have seen the problem you saw and maybe it would have been an easy fix. At this point you just may have to live with it till it comes out somewhere else and becomes a problem. Did you take any pictures? I would still mention it to the management and see what they could do to fix it. Maybe they will, maybe they want.
 

joe71nj

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I never saw it until we already had my tub in and all the new framing and plumbing in on my side. Nobody was running the water on the other side so I never saw the leak initially.... otherwise I would have told them about it and had them fix it. The hole was on the side of the pipe where you couldn't see it... so I had no idea it was there. I should have taken pictures but I was in the middle of trying to get my whole apt back together. I had a major flood from a toilet supply that popped off of someone's toilet upstairs from me... so I was completely displaced from my home. I was under the gun to rebuild and simply forget to take the pictures before the cement board went in.
 

Cacher_Chick

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I try not to worry about what is going on over at my neighbor's place. If it's not effecting me, it's none of my business.
 

joe71nj

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I try not to worry about what is going on over at my neighbor's place. If it's not effecting me, it's none of my business.

I was concerned that eventually it could affect me if the water is just dumping into the ground... like if it started eroding the soil under the slab beneath my tub or if the ground stopped accepting the water and it started making it's way into my bathroom...
 
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I was concerned that eventually it could affect me if the water is just dumping into the ground... like if it started eroding the soil under the slab beneath my tub or if the ground stopped accepting the water and it started making it's way into my bathroom...
I suppose when it makes its way back into your bathroom, you can tear out your tub to deal with that, and at the same time the neighbors can fix theirs.
 
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