Want to fix my Leaky Shower Drain - not sure where to start

[bAdamh]

Hey everyone,

It appears my shower drain is leaking. See attached photos. Water is leaking into the area indicated by the red Arrows. I tested this by letting a little bit of water sit in the crevasse and it drained out. I tried to caulk with silicon but that did not help.

I have found plenty of tutorials online showing how to remove and replace the drain... but each example I've found had flanges for strainer screw holes to use as leverage to twist the strainer body.

So first question... I've mentally prepared my self to remove this drain and install a new one. But I'm not sure how to get this one off.

Second question, am I headed down the right path, is there something else I should consider?

I can get underneath if I have too. There is a crawl space below, its just a little tight getting in and out.



Adam

 

[Terry]

You normally have to replace those from underneath. I now install those with Silicone and not putty. There will be a large nut under the pan that holds the drain in place. I sometimes have to cut those off. They do make a drain that can be installed from the top now.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[bAdamh]

Hi Terry, thanks for the quick reply.

I will give that a try.

 

[Terry]

The old drain cut out.

And a new one installed.

 

[bAdamh]

Here's what it looks like at the moment. Is the nut the part with angular edges? Not sure if I can get a saw in there. Thoughts?

 

[Terry]

The angled part is the nut. I sometimes cut from the inside outward since I'm replacing it anyway. Careful to not cut so far that I'm into the pan. I cut the part (drain) inside the nut, collapse it and then the nut can be pushed downward and off.
Are you sure it's leaking now?

 

[bAdamh]

The shower is definitely leaking... and I am fairly confident it is the drain, but am open to other possibilities.

After a shower, water seeps out of the bottom left side of shower (between the base of the shower and the tile). You can see some of the water damage on the wall in the picture. My first thought was to caulk the seams on the inside, but that didnt help.

Also attached is a picture of the respective inside corner where the water seems to be coming out.

 

[Addison]

Just throwing this out there; i have a neoangle shower that would leak outside the shower as well. Long story short, my issue was that the previous owner caulked the entire inside of the shower: they caulked the base of the glass shower walls where is meets the pan. My neo angle shower was only supposed to be caulked where the shower walls met the actual wall; not the glass. The reason being is that there were actually water channels in the glass walls metal frames that would route the water down at out where the glass wall metal channel met the pan.

The issue with caulking the entire inside, even the glass wall bottoms where it meets the pan, was that it was trapping water that got into the metalpanel channels and the water would travel (wherever it could) which in my case was a long the pan curb and out the back corner of shower pan.

If i removed a bit of caulk from the back corner (where the glass wall and tile wall met) water would fill behind there, as that's where the trapped water traveled.

It looks like in the above picture that there may be water damage indication on the left side of the shower from the photo of the entire outside. I would ensure that the inside of the shower, where the glass wall channel meets the pan, caulk is not covering any weep-holes. I might also suggest removing the caulk from inside where the glass walled metal channel meets the pan.

Every shower may be different, but again my neoangle said not to caulk the inside where the glass meets the pan; however, you caulk around the entire metal base on the outside. This resolved my issue as the water that was in the channels was able to drain properly down and back into the pan base.

Here is a link to my post/issue. Hopefully it help!
https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?threads/caulk-question.70098/#post-519729

 

[bAdamh]

Hi Addison,

Thanks for the reply. I did some more testing and confirmed its not a problem with my drain. It is an issue with the shower walls.

I appreciate your information, not sure if it applies to my situation. The leak was present before I did any caulking. But the caulking hasn't helped either. Ill keep investigating...

Adam