None of the tub spouts caulked in four bathrooms

[apprehensive_iron461]

Hi - I'd like to start off with acknowledging that I can easily just caulk the areas of concern now but my question is more so regarding historical damage that needs to be investigated.

I posted recently about a showerhead execution but from the answers to that post, learned that the actual problem was my tubspouts and jets.

I have a home built in 2008 but I bought it in 2022. To the best of my knowledge these have all been this way for a while.

It all started with finding wetness in the kneewall space behind the master shower (and moldy insulation). After some investigation, we found that the shower bodyjet was not caulked around and water was pouring through if aimed that way. Now, the only reason I found this issue is because there is the kneewall space. But that led me to investigate all the other areas in the bathroom and I found none of these fixtures are caulked. And they DON'T have kneewall spaces where I can assess the damage . So now I'm in a situation where potentially there has been water seeping in through behind all these fixtures and there is a mold issue? I don't want to just get it caulked if there is mold behind there. What can be done? Even the adjacent corner of my master shower has the same waterjet with no caulk and probaby mold all behind there?

Also, I checked, there is no caulk on the inside of the fixtures, I was able to unscrew them all.

 

[CENTRALFL]

If you take off the tub spout off, is there enough room to stick a borescope camera down there? Or possibly from the mixing valve (those usually at least have a gasket, and the access hole is bigger).

 

[Sponsor]

 

[John Gayewski]

The only reason these would need caulked would be if there was water shooting directly at them. In a normal shower and bath the tub spout doesn't get caulked because there isn't water running on them like a drain. Any water that touches that spot would be and incidental tiny amount that couldn't run down anywhere to damage anything. Plus the tub spout should be run up tight to the wall so incidental water should run off.