Identifying Shower Leak

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DW85745

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1) Anyone have any good tips to ID a shower leak.
Right now, I'm using blue painters tape and covering over the various areas
(surround to wall, over glass and rubber seal, surround to shower pan, etc)
then running the water and seeing if I can id the leak. Run water, then gradually remove pieces of the blue tape until leak shows. Works some, but time consuming.

2) Also saw a UTube video which stated where the bottom of the surround intersects the shower pan,
not to silicon caulk these bottom inside joints. I would think as the water drains off the glass it would run under the aluminum of the surround and cause it to deteriorate -- but maybe not sealing it lets air get in to dry out rather than the moisture being trapped. Anyone heard of this and agree / disagree?
 

wwhitney

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Where are you seeing the leaked water? Have you already isolated the leak to the shower surround itself? That would be my first step.

I.e. check if the water supply piping is leaking--run the shower directly into a bucket, dispose of elsewhere. (Repeat). Check if the drain assembly itself is leaking-fill a bucket elsewhere, pour directly into the drain. (Repeat).

Then if you're sure it's the shower surround, and you have some suspect areas, you can try pouring water from a bucket directly on those. Of course, when the leak appears, you need to rule out the area just below the suspect, by pouring water lower down.

Cheers, Wayne
 

DW85745

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wwhitney thanks for responding.
This is a corner shower.
The two back walls are imitation marble.
The two side are glass framed by aluminum.
All walls sit on a fiberglass shower pan.
The pan weep holes are NOT plugged.
The leak areas appear to be coming from the glass to aluminum seal on both sides
near where they intersect the imitation marble. The aluminum to marble seal appears OK.
The glass is smooth facing toward shower area, but textured (rain) on outside.
As stated, I have tried blue tape.
I pour water starting from the bottom on the tape, then check for leak, then remove some
tape, and and repeat pour check process. This way if leak shows,
can assume between bottom of still in place tape and top of last removed tape piece. However, using a glass (more precise than bucket). doesn't have the force -- or volume (bucket may) like
pointing head that area.
Had contemplated maybe using an aquarium pump so would get steady stream.

The key question I have, is should the inside aluminum edge that intersects the shower pan be caulked or NOT caulked and only caulk the bottom outside aluminum edge?
 
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