Shower Floor Pans Repair Made Fast And Easy

Shower floor pans develop leaks several ways. Sometimes the only way to fix the problem is to tear out the old shower pan and install a new shower pan and liner. But there are at least two other ways you can sometimes fix a leaky tile shower.

There is a method to fix shower leaks by injecting epoxy through the floor of the shower. The injected epoxy forms a waterproof layer under the tile shower floor. I understand that injecting epoxy evenly under the shower floor could stop a leak. But I worry that you don't know where the epoxy actually is going. If epoxy runs toward the shower drain under the floor, the pan won't drain properly and you may not know it. Any structural problems caused by leaks aren't fixed either.

Maybe the epoxy injection method has a place but any savings over actually rebuilding the shower pan may disappear over time. It's just postponing a real repair.

Another approach, short of rebuilding a shower pan, is doing spot repairs. When I recently had a shower leak, I called our local tile guru. He suggested looking for grout problems and then sealing any grout breaks with silicone. I eventually had the shower pan rebuilt, but that may have been unnecessary. Read on to find out why!

Grout in shower floor pans is not waterproof, unless an epoxy grout, like Spectralock is used. Water leaks through the grout to the shower pan liner beneath and then flows down the liner to the shower drain. That's the design. Over a long period of time, the water seeping through the grout causes grout deterioration. The grout can crumble, crack and fail.

One step you really should take is to seal your shower floor grout to help repel water. This will prolong the life of the grout. This normal maintenance is often overlooked.

If you have cracked grout causing a leak, you should evaluate the damage. If you have a crawl space under the shower pan, it's easy to see what happened. Is there mold or rot? How much? Minor problems will look better if you stop that leak and let everything dry. Maybe you need some expert advice before you decide what to do. If the subfloor is still solid underneath, you may not need a complete replacement.

Many times the grout failures are in corners of the shower and the water is leaking over the existing shower pan liner so the pan hasn't actually failed. The water is running outside the shower pan liner. If the shower pan is still good, fixing the leak may be all you need to do.

Here's how to proceed. First, let the shower dry completely. Then regrout or seal the cracks with silicon caulk.

If you choose to regrout, get a tile grout saw and remove the damaged grout as much as possible. Then work in new grout with a rubber grout trowel. Go over all the grout especially in the corners and the floor to make sure it's all sound. Clean the tile and seal after it's dry and you're ready to try your shower pan liner repair.

If you just seal with silicone, make very sure the area is dry and work in plenty of silicone. That's after you've used your grout saw and removed damaged grout. The challenge in sealing a leak with caulk is getting the caulk down in the grout grooves. It's hard to do especially with narrow grooves!

Carefully watch for shower leaks after your repair and you should soon know whether your repair worked.

Want to know more about shower pans and shower pan installation? Understanding how shower pans work can save you a bunch of money even if you're just making a shower repair! You might pay for a shower pan replacement when you only need a repair!

Visit InstallingCeramicTile.Net! and get the guidance you need to repair your shower floor pan.

Al Bullington enjoys ceramic tile and showers in the hot and humid rural South.

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Building Codes And Remodeling

Hotel Noise Case Study

Combining an indoor water park, arcade, and conference center with an exquisite 161-room lodge, The Tundra Lodge Resort and Waterpark seemingly had everything going for it on opening day. Just four blocks from the country's newest pro stadium in a region famous for rabid football fans, many of whom travel long distances to attend games, The Tundra Lodge was perfectly situated to draw faraway fans and local families to its Lombardi Avenue address.

THE PROBLEM

But then the complaints about room-to-room sound intrusion began. Melanie Novinska, the facility's Managing Director of Engineering, remembers the impact the complaints over noise were having by the end of the first year of operation. "The cost of keeping people happy included discounts and certificates for people to try us again. "The sound transfer from one guestroom to another was unacceptable. Of course, when you first open any hotel property, business is slow. You don't find the problems until you're selling lots of rooms and guests are next to each other." How bad was the actual performance of the resilient channel walls her original architect-builder designed-in? Before renovation began, the sound transmission of the old walls was measured. The best-performing walls were all of STC 37 and the worst yielded only an STC 34 rating-hardly above standard 5/8-inch drywall. Because the lodging business is so heavily impacted by word-of-mouth, Novinska estimates inadequate sound isolation in the original construction was causing some 50% of repeat business to evaporate. That's a lot of revenue for any hotel to lose; As we had 160 rooms, this was a complete disaster. Something had to be done.

THE SOLUTION

Novinska felt compelled to educate herself. "I read about a number of solutions on the internet and requested information. We chose to fix the problem using QuietRock, an internally damped soundproof drywall." After receiving third-party validation from Patrick McCormick of Brandner Engineering about the proposed solution, contractor HJ Martin began the work of removing the now two-year-young drywall. While the new soundproof drywall could have simply been placed over the existing drywall, outlets needed to be moved as well, so it was decided to remove the drywall on the shared walls. The soundproof drywall was then used instead of the old RC/drywall wall. "With tape, texture and paint, we were able to complete about 6-8 rooms every 5 days", Novinska recalls.

RESULTS

"Before we fixed it, the situation was really bad," Jay Hussong of drywall contractor HJ Martin commented. "You could hear conversations right through the walls. After we were finished, we went back to measure the STC of the rooms and found they exceeded STC 50...we could clearly hear the difference." "After fixing the rooms, the noise complaints stopped," reported Novinska. "Our occupancy rates went up and the difference was amazing. This was the perfect solution for us. Factoring all the costs, including materials and labor, you'll realize savings over the long term by addressing soundproofing upfront, she advised other building owners. "Start with the right products and properly position your outlets and any other openings on back-to-back guestrooms, and you'll get quiet rooms."

Kevin Surace is CEO of Quiet Solution in Sunnyvale California. More information is available at http://www.quietsolution.com. More information is available at Quiet Solution.

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