Details: The house is a 3 story house. When showering on the 2nd or 3rd floor, the living room ceiling leaked. Not just 1-2 drops but we had to get a bucket and you can see the staining on the ceiling. This was 4-5 years ago and we stopped using these showers. No further leaking when NOT using the showers. The contractor opened the ceiling today near the staining and turned on the showers. He said that there was no leaking. What happened? Any suggestions? Thanks.
I have encountered this problem. It is one of two things. Either the rubber gasket at the drain is bad or the plumbers putty has failed at the drain. If you have a fiberglass shower pan, there is a metal plate attached to the drain by two screws. Once these are removed you have a collar which is screwed in to the mating piece on the underside of the pan. The other piece is glued to the waste line. Between the glued piece and the bottom of the pan is a rubber washer. This may be bad. I'd try removing the collar first and reapplying plumbers putty and reinstalling it. This can be done by using the handles of a pair of channel locks against the nubs that the screws go into. After doing that, test it. If it still leaks then it is the gasket. You will actually have to buy a complete assembly to get one as home centers don't sell them separately. It always amazes me how some plumbers want to start tearing out ceilings before checking the obvious. I can almost guarantee you that your leak is one of the two.
Could you see any pipes in he ceiling, drain pipes or hot and cold water pipes? I doubt if the pipes fixed them selves and if you start using these showers again, it will start leaking again. Most likely the pipe or pipes have calcium deposit that have temporarily sealed the leak. I would leave the ceiling open for a week and use those showers every day to see if they start leaking again. Good luck
HyperDog is right. If it doesn't leak when shower is on with nobody in it, means it's not leaking from shower drain. It could be cracked tile, broken grout, or broken caulking. Or may be when somebody is in the shower, the floor goes down a bit, making a crack between the shower bottom and the tiles. When you find the reason will be easy to fix. Good luck.
Did the plumber stand in the shower and move around, jump up and down and attempt to distort the floor of the shower? Did he deflect the shower as would occur with someone actually standing in the shower, such that water would splash against the walls, back at the faucets, etc? Did he turn on both the hot and cold water? I would actually have someone use the shower, in particular whomever used the shower before when it leaked - the reason being that maybe something they were doing caused water to be diverted enough that it found a place to escape the shower stall and/or floor pan.
