One of the bathrooms in my house has a shower stall, and the door is leaking to the outside of the stall. This water found its way to the basement below. Fortunately for me, I have a drop ceiling, and when I moved the ceiling tile to look, I saw that when this thing was built, the shower base was placed in such a way that the drain lined up directly over a joist. The installers cut the joist, ran the drain pipe down and then screwed a piece of plywood on one side of the joist. This plywood is not the full width of the joist, and it appears to be too short. It is also cracked length-wise. This is the only joist that is cut. All the others are solid.

Given than the only time this joist supports weight is when someone is taking a shower....does this present a problem ?.

Should I replace the plywood ?. Should I get a joist and put it next to this one ?.

I may I decide to replace the entire bathroom, which is pretty dated. Do they make shower stall basins with off center drain holes ?. I've never seen one. If the hole if off center I'd be able to keep the same layout I have now, but the drain would not interfere with the joists below.

 

Sounds like you need to install a header on each side of the joist cut to transfer the unsupported load to the joists on each side. The header framing has been covered in this post:

http://forum.doityourself.com/showth...ghlight=header

 

You can also install a shower pan with a "non-centered" drain... There are many types out there....

You do need to repair that cracked joist - it isn't going to get any better on it's own...