Hello,

I am writing because I need help. One year after moving into our house, our daughter noticed a brown water spot downstairs near our front door entrance. I looked at it and thought it may have been from the A/C unit. We called the A/C maintenace man and everyone else who we thought may have known what this was due to because the house was virtually brand new. We finally got the people who installed the plumbing and they told us that the connections that they used on the pipes that water floows thru, especially the ones in the bathrooms( I do not know what he was talking about) were defective when they installed them when they built the house and they were aware of the problem and that he would replace the parts with the correct ones. Well, by the time that the came to fix the problem, I had a foot long whole in the sheetrock. The water stain was about 4 feet. Oh, the upstairs shower just so happen to be above the area downstairs where the water stain and now, whole, are. The guy ended up having to tear down the tile in the shower to get to the piping. He asked if we wanted all of the pipes fixed because they would end up doing the same thing. I insisted. Well, it's been 2 years now and guess what????????? This morning may daughter informed me that it was raining downstairs because water was pouring out of the ceiling. I ran down and saw water coming from around my A/C vent and in the same 4 foot water stain area I told you about earlier. I heard the same shower on in my son's restroom upstairs. The water was pouring downstairs. I knocked on the door and told him to cut the shower off. I ran downstairs and the water had stopped. What is this and did they fix the problem?? I caled the same plumber back and he told me there would be a charge 95.00 per hour charge now since the warranty on the plumbing was off. Please help me....Can we fix this ourselves and should we let them do their job?? What is actually the problem?? Why do we not have this issue with other showers in our home??

Thanks a lot

 

You've got a leak in the shower - past the mixing valve (hence, your son shutting the shower off cured the problem) (assuming the leak stopped pretty much instantly when he turned it off - if it dribbled for a while, it could be the drain)... However, since your plumber made "recent" repairs, and I don't believe in coincidence... he didn't do a very good job... sounds like...

What to do? Find the leak. I would start behind the shower enclosure, at the mixing valve to the spray head.....

So much depends on your DIY skills.... and I can't make recommendations there... What might be a weekend job for some can be a monster for others.

If you decide to have a pro take care of it... use someone other than the first one.... A quality shop would have come out and taken a look, two years be darned....... just to back up their work.

 

Got it.....We have checked the spray head and do not see a problem....I hope it is not the shower pan....Or the shower drain...Are those two the same thing??? I hope that it is not a shower pan...How can we detect if it is a shower pan problem. How do we know if we have a drain problem?? I hope that this was not the problem the whole time and the plumber fixed the wrong problem. I would be very upset because our warranty is "off" as the plumber stated and had they fixed the problem back then it would have been their problem, not our as far as bucks are concerned. Let us know...Your advice has been great...

The Hewetts