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Reputation: 157

How do I troubleshoot a mysterious leak without ripping up floor and/or ceiling?

Details: old house. upstairs bathroom. Sometimes when we shower we get drops from the ceiling in the room below the bathroom. The drops come from one, drop sized hole that has no noticeable water damage. It's like the hole was drilled for the drops. And the leak only happens about 50% of the time when the shower is running. How can I find the source of the leak without ripping up the tile floor of the bathroom, or the ceiling of the room below? Plumbers have come, looked and walked away after claiming that ripping things apart is the only way.

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  • Img_3324_2_small
    Reputation: 1962

    If you have constricted drain or sewer pipes, water can slowly empty out of the pipes when not in use, such as overnight or while you're at work. Then as more and more water goes into the drain from various sources, sinks, showers, whatever, the sewer line and the pipes fill up faster than it can exit past the blockage. The water could be filling the lines to the point where it reaches the hole in your shower drain, then leaks out.

    Imagine a horizontal pipe with a hole in the top, for example, where water only reaches the hole when the pipe is full but not when a stream of water is flowing along the bottom of the pipe.

    That could explain why it doesn't happen all the time. You can test this by running a sink continuously for a while and seeing if the water starts to back up and the drain empties slowly. Then go turn on the shower and see if your leak happens right away. Conversely, if the house has been unoccupied for several hours and nobody has used any water, and then you run the shower and there is no leak, that suggests the pipes were empty and haven't filled up yet.

    If that's the case, you might mitigate the problem by having your sewer line cleared. Your leak will still be there, but if the line is not blocked it shouldn't fill up after a lot of usage, and it might then not leak.

    But that only puts off the day when you will have no choice but to open up the walls and fix it. Clearing your sewer line is good preventative maintenance anyway, so it wouldn't be a total waste if it doesn't help with the shower leak.

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3 Other Answers

  • N871065272_8115_small
    Reputation: 959

    I'm with the plumbers on this one. You want to open up the ceiling to figure out where the leak is coming from and how bad the damage is. It's very possible that a long-term leak could have led to rot or mold.

    There are many places the water could be leaking. If you're lucky, you'll see an obvious leak on a drain or water-supply pipe, but keep in mind that leaks can be higher up, running down the outside of the pipe and only falling as a drip when the water reaches a low point or the edge of a joint.

    You don't say what kind of tub or shower you have. If the shower has a tile floor, the leak could be coming through a crack in tiles or grout. It could also be that shower water is splashing somewhere where it then leaks down into the floor.

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  • 48911_100000191532248_6144_n_small
    Reputation: 14

    If you have a tub, the overflow could be leaking, but if you have had a plumber look then they would have checked this for tightness, you probably have a hole in the drain. Patching a hole in the ceiling below is not too difficult and you should do something other than ignore the issue to avoid mold. Open up the ceiling, have the pipes repaired, patch, paint and move on. The joys of home ownership!

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  • Sacri_ordines_by_charism_small
    Reputation: 3723

    Only 50% of the time? There must be some 'trigger'.

    Dye the water. Start a process of elimination. Fill a sink, then shower. Flush then shower. Check humidity indoors and shower.

    Even then, the endgame is going to be hiring plumbers and ripping things apart, though, right?

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