Hi. I need help deciding how much of my bathroom needs to be gutted. We had a square shower stall with plastic walls on two sides, and a glass wall/door on the other two sides. The glass enclosure leaked where it was joined to the wall on both sides, and caused mold on the drywall and discoloration of the linoleum floor. We had the glass enclosure removed, and were going to regrout and replace that, when we had a toilet flood in the adjacent bathroom, which further ruined the floor, and exposed some minor mold problems under the basedboards around the toilet (which is adjacent to the shower). So, at this point we have removed the rest of the shower stall (except the pan), removed all of the wallboard on the two walls by the shower and toilet, and removed the flooring (and of course, the toilet for now). A plumber will be roughing in a new shower valve tomorrow, before we put up new wallboard. (It's not leaking now, but the house is 37 years old, and we figured we might as well replace it now, while the shower and walls are already ripped out.) After my husband removed the flooring, there was a strong mildew smell. (You couldn't see it, because the concrete floor is black anyway. It has now been cleaned with bleach.) So, should we remove the shower pan also, on the presumption that there could be mold/mildew under it also? Or should we just leave it alone, since it would require a professional to reinstall, and we are having a lot of trouble finding a contractor who isn't already busy for the next 6 months?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. We are trying to get this all fixed as quickly as possible, but of course we want to do it right also.

-Helen

 

I would pull up the shower pan just to cover all basis and inspect the damage done.


That way you can have peace of mind that you fully contained and removed all damage that was caused to the floor.