Waterproofing old shower

[pizza]

hi gents,

i have a stack of bathrooms at our summer home i need to remodel, but i'm not ready yet.
in the meantime, there's only one working shower here, and now it leaks. after showering, i see a small puddle below it in the unfinished basement. by observation, it's not the drain that's leaking. i can see the drain clearly from the basement, and i also see there is actually some bubbling through the tile grout when looking at the wet shower floor.

i'd like to squeeze some extra life out of this shower if possible. maybe a few years even.

as you can see, it's a small (~32x38"), tile shower. it's 45-50 years old.

after letting it thoroughly dry for several days (or a week, or whatever), i was thinking of picking out some loose pieces of grout and then caulking the **** out of the grout joints. maybe with DAP 3 or DAP Ultra.

or would i be better off grinding out the grout somehow and re-grouting? and then use sealant on the wall/floor seams, around the drain, etc?

and then maybe after that, i've seen that there are various waterproof membrane products available that you can paint over the entire shower floor (and maybe also a foot or two up the wall)?

anyone have specific products they've used and liked? cosmetics aren't a concern to me, lol. i'd even slather it with redguard if it's a lot cheaper than some other membrane product.

thanks for the tips and ideas

 

[bimmer1980]

I think I would try the caulk version first.....might get 6 months to a year with that....

Certainly the RedGuard would have waterproofing advantage...other than looking like a murder scene....

I fought a shower with leaks around the perimeter for awhile before I did a whole gut and new install....

 

[yeldogt]

Where are the bubbles -- that looks solid. water travels .....I would hit it with bleach and caulk the perimeter

 

[ludakris04]

Can of FlexSeal and a paint brush?

I mean it waterproofs a chicken wire boat!

 

[aka Larry]

No help here, but damn, that is the ugliest style/color of tile for a shower I've ever seen.

 

[pizza]

Where are the bubbles -- that looks solid. water travels .....I would hit it with bleach and caulk the perimeter

i saw bubbling through the grout (and not at the perimeter)
looking up close, i see little gaps and holes in many spots

Can of FlexSeal and a paint brush?

I mean it waterproofs a chicken wire boat!

interesting. it would look fucked, but like i said, i'd even use redguard on the exposed surface, so i don't care as long as it works well.

No help here, but damn, that is the ugliest style/color of tile for a shower I've ever seen.

haha

 

[logical]

Grout is not a sealer. You can try really good caulk or maybe a coating as a temp solution. Ultimately, if the membrane under the tile is compromised or non-existent it likely needs to be torn down to what is likely a soggy, rotting bunch of wood.

Sent from my garage.

 

[mike93lx]

Grout and tile are not waterproof. If the substrate isnt waterproof, you are wasting your time

 

[s14kev]

There is going to be a rotting mess of subfloor under that with mold. You are better off not leaving it a few years for fear of a ton more work with rotting framing. If you have to use it, redgard would make it waterproof but you are sandwiching saturated tile/grout/mortar between the waterproof redgard and the pre-existing (now failed) waterproof membrane under the tile. It'll never dry out and get even nastier.

 

[Gigem]

Can of FlexSeal and a paint brush?

I mean it waterproofs a chicken wire boat!

This! And take pictures please.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

 

[frank001]

No help here, but damn, that is the ugliest style/color of tile for a shower I've ever seen.

Exactly what I was thinking.

 

[pizza]

There is going to be a rotting mess of subfloor under that with mold. You are better off not leaving it a few years for fear of a ton more work with rotting framing. If you have to use it, redgard would make it waterproof but you are sandwiching saturated tile/grout/mortar between the waterproof redgard and the pre-existing (now failed) waterproof membrane under the tile. It'll never dry out and get even nastier.

i hear you, but i can see the subfloor from below in the unfinished basement.

i'm considering drilling a few holes in it and letting a fan blow on it from below. i could probably get it dry enough to prevent more damage to framing, right? besides, last year i came back to the house in the spring to find a burst pipe in the adjacent bathroom. major water damage (had to gut a lot of drywall etc), so a lot wood needs to be replaced anyways. including subfloor. it was probably spraying for weeks. so i'm not sweating a bit of extra water damage at this point. that was a ******* nightmare . had to pump out the basement, fix water heater, fix furnace, etc

that was the second burst pipe situation i've dealt with.

here was the first (different house):

that's after pumping it out some. the water was like to the ceiling when i found it.
nice water bill.

i'm never, ever leaving an even briefly unattended house with pressurized pipes again.

 

[pvanderlugt]

i hear you, but i can see the subfloor from below in the unfinished basement.

i'm considering drilling a few holes in it and letting a fan blow on it from below. i could probably get it dry enough to prevent more damage to framing, right? besides, last year i came back to the house in the spring to find a burst pipe in the adjacent bathroom. major water damage (had to gut a lot of drywall etc), so a lot wood needs to be replaced anyways. including subfloor. it was probably spraying for weeks. so i'm not sweating a bit of extra water damage at this point. that was a ******* nightmare . had to pump out the basement, fix water heater, fix furnace, etc

that was the second burst pipe situation i've dealt with.


here was the first (different house):

that's after pumping it out some. the water was like to the ceiling when i found it.
nice water bill.

i'm never, ever leaving an even briefly unattended house with pressurized pipes again.

At least it was nice clean water, and not a backed up sewer.....fun?no..could be much worse ?...oh yeah.....

 

[Kaizen]

I’ve got all kinds of ghetto fab ideas. Wonder how long zip tape would work. How about a shower pan the same size sitting on top?
Ditra I believe can be installed over tile but same work as ripping it out.
All kinds of bandaids. Problem is it moves so really only one true fix


Sent from my iPhone using Garage Journal

 

[Skiff Builder]

A bucket of 3M 5200 and a trowel. It's been used to keep entirely rotted boat hulls afloat! Will work here too.

 

[LOW1]

What's under the tile? Cement board? Plywood? a premade pan?

You may be better off/healthier letting the water drain to the unfinished basement than trying to encase rotten wood with caulk.

 

[Barnabas]

My 50-year old tiled shower started to leak like yours. It turned out the pan was made out of material that looked like layers of wax paper. When that starts leaking, no amount of grout or caulk is going to fix it. You need to rip out the shower floor, install a modern floor pan, and trim out the side wall tiles.
You don't need to replace all the side tiles, but you really should rip it all out and install modern backer board.

 

[Shiftless]

My 50-year old tiled shower started to leak like yours. It turned out the pan was made out of material that looked like layers of wax paper. When that starts leaking, no amount of grout or caulk is going to fix it. You need to rip out the shower floor, install a modern floor pan, and trim out the side wall tiles.
You don't need to replace all the side tiles, but you really should rip it all out and install modern backer board.

I had exactly the same situation in my 60 year old tile shower. It had to all come out along with replacing rotted floor joists. The longer you wait, the worse it becomes until you have structural damage. With tile that looks like that, I wouldn’t even consider only changing the bottom 12 inches. It’s not much more work to rip it ALL out and the final result will be WAY better.

 

[mrpizza]

for a temp solution I would rip the whole thing out and then install a cheap standup one piece fiberglass unit for the time being. Fix the wood before you install the fiberglass deal.

 

[tonyciambrone]

What's under the tile? Cement board? Plywood? a premade pan?

You may be better off/healthier letting the water drain to the unfinished basement than trying to encase rotten wood with caulk.

This was my first thought as well.
Put a bucket under it and shoot a fan at it from below everytime you use it.
You are just delaying the inevitable, but I think waterproofing over that is going to make your situation worse.

 

[johnnyradiant]

This was my first thought as well.
Put a bucket under it and shoot a fan at it from below everytime you use it.
You are just delaying the inevitable, but I think waterproofing over that is going to make your situation worse.

This.

How many other showers in your 'stack' are already decommissioned? I would think energy should be focused on getting at least one bathroom fixed properly. It's often not too hard to come up with a decent shower base on clearance at a wholesaler, a big box or even an online purchase including Craigslist, then you don't have to worry about getting a waterproof base made if you've not done that before and they certainly don't look any worse than the existing tile. Water tight shower walls are relatively easy for even a novice to produce if you pick a system and follow the steps for it without cutting corners. Of course if you've got the inclination the Schluter system isn't too hard to do as a base but it will definitely take a bit more time and $ than just dropping in a fiberglass or acrylic shower base.

 

[Shiftless]

I agree 100% with this ^^^^^^^^^^\

After I demolished my old tile shower, I dropped in on the the local plumbing supply store. I talked with “the old man” the founder and longtime owner of a very successful business. He told me that he put in an acrylic pan and tiled the walls long ago and it’s still in perfect condition. This guy has several employees and enough money to get literally any thing he wants for his own house. He went with an acrylic pan. Right after he told me that, I ordered one for my own job at my house. Ten years later it’s in perfect condition. It will probably outlive me.

 

[Glemon]

Spray on truck bed liner??

Maybe, I tore out a leaky shower a couple years ago, nasty, mold, etc. I usually do most things myself, but decided to hire out the new shower pan and tile, asI didn't want a similar situation to deal with down the road.

There is probably a crude way to seal it for a while, but you are going to need to tear it out and replace in the near future.

 

[yeldogt]

Wood getting wet is not a problem -- like plant roots ... it's staying wet that is the problem.

You can try and clean the floor and use a sealer ... but, if the pan and waterproof layer is gone ... that's the end of the road. The sealer will be temp at best.

What you replace it with is all about looks ... nice looking is always the most expensive

 

[Bretny]

Un finished basement and you plan on remodeling that shower just stick a bucket below it. I bet there is no pan liner or it has failed.

 

[Chuckster in NJ]

Bath Fitter conversion.

When I built my house 25 years ago I installed one piece shower and tub enclosures and my friends all said it was stupid because it was a custom house and they looked like ****.... 25 years later they still look great and have not leaked like a custom tile shower.

If you are doing a tile shower the BEST method is a SCHLUTER SYSTEM. www.schluter.com

 

[Tduby]

Flex seal it if you do a nice job it might even look prettier what are you out $20?

 

[dcg9381]

100% novice here. I just remodeled a not-complete-new bathroom from tub to shower. I spent about 3 weeks waiting on a shower pan, which came in damaged, and then backorder. Decided to say "screw it" - as this little job was holding up bigger jobs.

All of the showers in this home follow one design - build a square with sides, install the drain, then fiberglass it. We then fill it with water (home depot has drain stoppers) and see if it leaks for a week.

IF you've done fiberglass work at all - this is dead simple. IF not, around here, doing the fiberglass work and having concrete slope added is about $500 per shower. Shower pans run $200-$1000.

Tile, grout, and concrete are NOT waterproof. you've got to pull that stuff, get to the degraded sub-floor, and start over with a base that holds water.

Yes, "flex seal" might do it, but it's doing the same thing as plopping fiberglass on top of your existing tile.

Code requires 1/4 slope (over the pan) per 1'. Someone will pour concrete (mud) on top of this and hand form it into shape.

 

[pizza]

just following up on this for a laugh.

when i returned in spring 2021 (it was as dry as it was going to get), i prepped the surface by wiping it all out with a wet rag, removed some loose grout, and vacuumed it out really well.

after letting that dry overnight (not really wet), i went ape **** on it with my collection of half-used tubes of caulk. some white, some clear. the clear was used near the center. it is caulked, but it's harder to see.

i had to cut the nozzles pretty wide to get the caulk out of them, so i just embraced the mess. with a gloved hand, i smoothed the caulk out some and really pressed it into the cracks.

i waited a couple days for it to cure before using it.

have not really noticed it leaking since, but i guess it's possible that there is a minor leak, and i've just sealed it and made it harder to dry out. whatever.

again, this is just a place we come sometimes in the warm months.