House Blog

Yesterday Howdy helped me fix a leak in the shower. I knew it was leaking into the crawl space, but I didn't think it was too bad. I'm planning to do some bathroom work in a few weeks anyway. But the foundation guys told me that the ground was soaked, and some of the piers were sagging, so it was time to fix it. At first we thought it was a leak in the water supply line to the shower, but after not showering for a day, it was dry, so that didn't seem to be the problem. We discovered that the drain was leaking in two places, so we bought a new drain assembly, new PVC pipe and a new coupler to attach to the P-trap (that funny U-shaped thing that keeps your house from smelling like a sewer). As we were finishing the installation I dropped a little wrench down the drain. It could have happily stayed there, but Howdy decided to take it out with a magnet. On the picture you see the first attempt, using the magnet from him bike speedometer with a piece of floss, but the magnet was sticking to the cast iron P-trap, and wouldn't grab the wrench. Then we attached it to a wooden rod, and that way he got it out. We thought we were done, but when we started testing it by running the shower, there was still lots of water coming down to the crawl space (where Howdy was hanging out). It turned out that the seam at the edge of the shower pan lets through a lot of water. I sealed that seam later that afternoon with silicone. I showered at the gym later that night, so that the silicone can dry. Hopefully tomorrow it will be ready for a leak-free shower experience.