Water leak inside wall

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Gtomike06

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I'm trying to narrow down where it's coming from. It isn't a major leak I just noticed some dampness on the baseboard and tracked it to behind the shower in the exterior wall. There's a single cold water line behind the shower in the wall that feeds a spigot on the back of the house. I suspect it's either leaking from the brand new shower I had put in or the brand new water line in the wall.

I installed a ball valve in the attic to the spigot and didn't take a shower for a couple days and it dried out. I went and bought a pressure gauge and screwed it onto the spigot on the back of the house and turned the valve on and let the gauge pressure up and turned it back off. I let it sit overnight and it's been about 12 hours and the gauge has dropped 8 lbs. Is that going to be my leak or is there an acceptable amount of pressure drop?

When the shower was installed 2 months ago the plumbing was leak free but I do wonder if a screw could have found its way into the water line when they put the shower in.
 

CountryBumkin

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I don't think the dropping pressure on the spigot valve tells you enough. Are you on a well? Could the water pressure drop be loss through the well pump or such?
If you leave the shower pipe closed off, could you dump a couple of 5 gallon bucket of water into the shower to see if the leak shows up again? Maybe you could get a garden hose into the shower and give it a good soaking.
 

Jadnashua

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The water pressure will change some from just temperature variations, so without knowing those, the amount of change cannot be assigned.

One report I read indicated that 70-80% of all showers built in the USA do not meet industry guidelines, so it is quite possible that you have a leak in the shower! One way to test the pan is to rent or buy a drain plug, plug the drain with it, then fill the pan up with water for say 24-hours...see if you notice any signs of water leaking outside of the shower pan. Depending on how the pan is constructed, you will probably see the level drop some as water is absorbed just by the materials. A flood test of a pan is normally done just after installing the liner without any absorbent materials on top of it, but that's not possible now that it is finished. There are lots of ways to mess the shower pan up.
 

Gtomike06

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Yes it's a tile shower with a tile floor. The leak is inside an exterior wall so I can't see where exactly it's coming from without tearing something down. The pressure gauge I bought was a $10 one from lowes and the pressure dropped slightly every day checking it at the same time. There is a possibility that the shower leaks. The guy that built it used redguard and cbu on the curb which some people say is a nono but other people say it isn't that big a deal so who knows.

I think eventually I'll have to just pull the exterior wall off if I wanna find an answer....
 
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