A bath leaking underneath, and what we do when someone rings about one.
There is no leak in this photograph. It is a bath we fitted, shown before its panel went on, so the parts this post is about can be seen. Two chrome cross head pillar taps on a white bath, the chrome overflow cap and plug, the protective film still inside, cardboard along the edge by the tiles, and an open gap underneath with the pipework showing.
The joints underneath
Under a bath there are only a handful of joints, and when the water shows is the clue to which one.
Behind the chrome overflow cap is a seal against the bath, with a flexible pipe running down to the waste, and a leak there only shows when the bath is filled high enough to reach it. So a bath overflow leaking shows after a deep bath and not after a shallow one. The plug waste has its own seal under the plug hole, which can weep whenever there is water standing in the bath. Below it the trap and the waste pipe take the water away, so a leak there shows while the bath drains and not while it fills. The tap connections are full of water all the time, so a weep there can show whether the bath has been used or not. Then there is the joint along the tiles, where the cardboard sits in the photograph. Sealed, that joint keeps the shower water in the bath. When that sealant lets go the water runs down behind the bath instead, and the leak only appears after a shower. Wherever it starts, it tends to end up as a wet floor at the panel or a stain on the ceiling below.
The test
When someone rings with a bath leaking underneath, the panel comes off first, because most of those joints are behind it.
Then the bath is filled and let go, with a torch on the joints underneath, to see which one gives. Filling it high tests the overflow, and draining it tests the plug waste, the trap and the waste pipe.
Whichever one gave is then redone or replaced: a seal, the waste and overflow, the trap or the sealant along the tiles.
The panel goes back on once everything under the bath stays dry.
Baths and waste
Our bathroom page covers baths, waste pipework and silicone, not only full refits.
The bath in the photograph is the one in our bath replacement post.
Ring 07546 185778 and tell us when the water shows, while the bath fills, while it drains or after a shower, and where it turns up.
