A leaking shower tray, sealed again from scratch.
We cleaned every bit of the old silicone off, mould and all, and ran a new bead of silicone round the tray.
The leak
Every time a shower runs, the water comes down the tiles and meets the tray at one joint.
The silicone in that joint is the only thing keeping the water in the tray. When it lets go, even along a short stretch, the water goes down the outside of the tray instead of to the waste.
Nothing shows in the shower itself. It shows up somewhere else, as a stain on a ceiling below or a damp patch on the floor outside the shower. That is what people mean when they search for a shower tray leaking around the edges, or leaking at the seal.
All the old silicone out
A reseal starts with taking the old silicone out, every bit of it, and that is most of the job. New silicone will not stick to old silicone, or to mould, soap or dirt, so a fresh bead run over a tired one only covers the gap up, and the water still finds its way under it. So the old bead is cut out along its whole length, the last of it is scraped off the tray and the tiles, and the joint is cleaned back to bare tray on one side and bare tile on the other, which is where the photograph of the corner catches it. Then the joint has to be dry, because silicone run onto a damp surface does not bond to it. Only then does the new bead go on, in one steady run along each side, pushed into the joint rather than laid on top of it, and smoothed off so the water runs over it and into the tray. Then the shower stays off until the silicone has set.
The part nobody sees afterwards, the cleaning out, is the part that decides how long the new seal lasts.
The black line in the corner
Mould on the surface of silicone wipes off.
A black line that will not shift is under the surface or behind the bead, in the joint itself. The only way to it is to take the silicone out.
Smaller bathroom jobs
Our bathroom page puts refreshing tired grout and silicone with the smaller jobs, and a shower tray reseal is one of them. If the water has already come through a ceiling, our post on a leak from the flat above is how we trace where it is getting out.
Ring 07546 185778, say where the water is showing, and send us a photograph of the tray if you can.
