Why Your Shower May Be Leaking

12/18/2019 (Permalink)

Without proper grouting on your tub or shower, your bathroom may experience water damage to your walls and floors.

By now most homeowners or renters have experienced the laborious task of cleaning home showers. Floor stains don’t seem to go away even with every pass of the cleaning brush. Clorox or other household cleaners are dumped to get rid of the grime and soap scum around the tub or shower. Most of the time we find the glass and acrylic base the easiest to clean; the grout, however, always seems to give us the biggest issues. It seems the more we scrub, the more grout lost and the grime remains the same. This can make this task much more aggravating than it should be. 

Why You Should Not Scrub So Hard

While the loss of grout may seem unimportant as long as the shower is clean, grout is actually what keeps water in the tub. Grout does a great job at protecting your walls and flooring, preventing water to escape behind tile. It is a difficult material to clean without the use of heavy chemicals. Over time, these chemicals eat away at the grout’s ability to stick. Without heavy chemicals, cleaning grout calls for extra elbow grease, usually resulting in a rough scrub and strips the grout away as well. Even with a decent amount gone, it is likely homeowners notice the missing grout well into the later stages of water damage.

Improperly installed grout will also have the same effects as grout that has fallen off. Aside from water moving into exposed areas, some grout brands can be made of material that is semi porous or not made for bathrooms. This also allows water to pass through and encourages mold growth, causing even more costly damage for a homeowner. Grout should always be installed by a professional with plenty of experience.

What If The Leak Is Not Grout-Related?

There may be plenty of signs and reasons as to why your shower is leaking or bathroom is flooding. If you cannot physically determine where the leak is coming from it may be best to forgo using that particular bathroom. Call out a local plumber to assess and address your shower’s problems. Once these issues have been resolved, call out a restoration company like SERVPRO. It is important to inspect your bathroom for presence of mold or water damage and determine the costs as well as next steps.