Daily Home Renovation Tips

In Part 5 we described how we placed more silicone caulking over the remaining areas of our master bedroom en suite bathroom to stop the leak that was going into the basement drop ceiling tiles without success.

So, we called Bennett  and asked if he could spare a couple of hours to do a detailed investigation of our situation. We have to get the leak fixed.

We all know that a constant leak means that water is going somewhere. First water will permeate the wood sub-floor, then the wood beams until they are sufficiently soaked that the water passes over them and onto the drop ceiling tiles staining them. If this continues the leaking water will eventually drop from the soaked ceiling tiles and onto the carpeted floor.

As well, there is a health concern. We also all know why they install fans in bathrooms. The primary reason of course is to remove excess humidity build up from shower’s and baths. Otherwise, the excess humidity build up will cause  mold to grow which of course can be very harmful to one’s health. And, if that what excess humidity can cause, imagine what a leak can cause!

So, Bennett was able to clear 2 hours from his very busy schedule two days after we called him.

To make a long story short, we looked in the basement at all the piping, ran the water in the shower again but could not come up with a difinitive answer for the source of the leak with any confidence.

We were confident that two or three of the air venting pipes were in the wall between the master bedroom en suite shower and the master bedroom en suite potty room.

So, Bennett proceeded to remove the baseboard in the potty room that was adjacent to the en suite shower in order to further remove some of the drywall hidden. We were getting closer to the cause.

Some of the drywall that was removed at the base of the potty room floor contained mold. However, the outside of the pipes themselves were fully dry. How could this be?

He could see that the 2 X 6 support beams were damp on top of them, meaning that the water was definitely not coming from those air vent pipes. This was good in that it meant we didn’t have to worry about a leak coming from the roof.

He replaced the baseboard and applied caulking so it looked like it had never been removed in the first place.

Bennett proceeded to look again in the shower. “That’s it” Bennett said …. or something to that effect.

Return next time when we reveal what Bennett feels is the cause of the leak. Oh, and yes, we have stopped using the shower until Bennett returns in a few weeks to work on fixing what he believes is the cause of our leak.

To continue with the next article in this series, simply select this link to Part 7.