I need some help determining where a leak might be coming from, and I've tried everything I know. I'm hoping some of you can help. Our house is right at 30 years old, and we've lived here for about 2 years. A year ago I decided to remove the wallpaper in the hall bathroom that was original to the house, and when I did, there was a small section of drywall missing near the bottom of the wall where the wall meets the tub. I cut a bit of a larger hole to make a better patch for the wall. Several months went by, and I noticed that there was mildew on the wall at the bottom of the patch I'd done. Initially I thought it was because I hadn't used green board, but after cutting out that piece and finding the sheet rock soaked from the inside out, and the wood on the "floor" of the wall wet, I knew I had an "internal" problem. I have a metal tub with "plastic shower" surround. My understanding is that these tubs have a "channel" that runs all the way around them. After using a flashlight to investigate and a shish kabob skewer in the channel, I have determined that the only water that is visible is what is dripping off at the end of the "channel" and hitting the wood below. The rest of what I can see inside the wall is dry. There is no leaking when the tub is filled up. The only leaking occurs when the shower is run. It runs out of the channel surrounding the tub, onto the wood on the "floor" of the wall, and it makes a puddle on the bathroom floor since we have left the hole in the wall. I imagine that when there was sheet rock there, that's why the sheet rock was getting wet. I had some areas that weren't caulked properly around the tub, so I pulled off the old caulk and re-caulked around the entire bottom where the shower surround meets the tub. I also took off the spout and put plumbers putty around the opening. I also used clear caulk around the spout. We haven't replace anything in that shower since we've lived here, so I didn't think the spout would have all of a sudden become a problem, but I did it anyway. After weeks of dealing with this and investigating and doing the things I mentioned above, we had no water yesterday! I was excited and thought the problem was solved. Today there was water again, but it was a very small amount compared to what was there before. What else can we do that we haven't already done? Any ideas on where this water might be coming from? When I made the patch, I didn't come anywhere near pipes, so I am positive I didn't screw my drywall piece into a water line. Thanks in advance for any help you can give. ****Please pardon the first picture. I took it before I cleaned up the mess from cutting out the hole you see here. [img]https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.doityourselft.com-vbulletin/2000x1124/wall_picture_d334a1f1524b3f9ceefeacb51825591a9eb4dcd7.jpg[/img] [i]Water Puddled on Floor[/i] [img]https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.doityourselft.com-vbulletin/2000x1124/spout_picture_407d1cc46d5887a774afbc41b1b4270046323d73.jpg[/img] [i]Caulked Around Spout[/i] [img]https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.doityourselft.com-vbulletin/2000x1124/caulk_picture_51680dec1aa47121b65ed224ecfea1bd4dc85cd1.jpg[/img] [i]Caulk was Missing from Aggressive Scrubbing[/i] [img]https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.doityourselft.com-vbulletin/2000x1124/hole_in_wall_a9b5662c15af38057ff9f645ecdb1407da56d125.jpg[/img] [i]Picture of part Cut Out of Wall[/i]

Hey there gang :) This house seems to be full of mysteries! A room that once featured the washer and drier has what appears to be a floor drain that has recently shown water back-flowing and not receding. What has been confusing to me for years was I thought there was poured concrete in there and a bolt. The grate to the drain has been poured over with concrete so I had to snap it out to vacuum out the collected water. I'm seeing that the water appears to be leaking through the outer edge of some sort of plastic plug insert. The leaking appears to only occur with very large surges of water such as running washing machine + dishwasher + shower activity all together. I removed the wingnut and had to tie a string around the plastic bolt to keep if from falling into the clean-out. I then vacuumed out water and sludge build-up in the pipes which should have removed the slow flow problem experienced over the years and contributing to a [url=https://www.doityourself.com/forum/plumbing-piping/608862-whirlpool-tub-backflow-when-washing-machine-dishwasher-draining.html]previous post I made on a back-flowing bath tub some years ago[/url]. Here's some images of the floor drain after ripping off the drain cover and vacuuming out water/debris. [img]https://i.imgur.com/7wNNNvZ.jpg[/img] [img]https://i.imgur.com/wgFXKeL.jpg[/img] Anyway, I have a couple of questions. [list=1] [*]How should I permanently fix this leak? It shouldn't happen now that I've vacuumed out the pipe, but it doesn't look like a sealed water tight fit. Its some sort of plastic nested in concrete. The plastic plug insert thing doesn't look like it was original equipment for this 1970's house. [*]Do you believe the floor drain was plugged intentionally by a compressed rubber stopper that corroded into the state seen in the image? I'm not sure if I should remove that rubber stopper and restore this drain to usable or replace the rubber stopper so I can at least service the drain if needed as a clean-out access. [/list]