A few months back I got a call from a homeowner in Buckeystown who was having a rough week. They had their bathroom redone by another contractor a few months earlier, about $15,000 worth of work, and water was coming through into the basement.
If you have ever had that happen, you know the feeling. You do not just see a stain on the ceiling. You start doing math in your head about ripping the whole thing back out.
Why they did not call the original contractor
The first thing I asked was whether they had gone back to the guy who built it. They had his number. They just did not feel good about it.
I hear that more than you would think. Once trust goes, people would rather pay somebody else than argue with the person who already let them down. I am not going to speak badly about another contractor’s work, because I was not there and I do not know what his day looked like. But I understand why they called me instead.
What I found
I went out and looked at it before quoting anything. My honest first thought was that we might be looking at a full tear-out, and I told them that up front, because I would rather set expectations low and come in under them.
Instead of ripping out the whole shower, I chipped out the pan on the floor. That is the part most people do not realize you can do. You can often get underneath a shower without destroying the walls and the tile work above it.
The problem turned out to be small. The drain had not been glued to the rubber liner correctly. That is it. A connection that takes a few minutes to do right, and it had been leaking quietly into their basement ever since.
It is almost always something like that. Big water damage, tiny cause.
The overnight test
Here is the part I want people to take away from this one.
After I patched it, I did not tile it back. I filled it and let it sit overnight with water in it, and came back the next day to check it.
I could have closed it up the same day. The fix looked right. But this homeowner had already paid for one bathroom that leaked, and I was not going to put tile over my repair and then find out I was wrong. Once that tile is set, checking my work means breaking it again.
So we lost a day. They got to watch me stand there the next morning and confirm it was dry before anything went back together. I think that mattered to them more than the repair did.
If this is happening to you
- Do not assume it is a full rebuild. Get somebody to look before you brace yourself for the worst number. Chipping out a pan is a very different job than gutting a bathroom.
- Find the actual cause. Water travels. Where you see it come through the ceiling is often not where it started.
- Ask whether they are going to test it. If somebody tells you they will patch it and tile it the same day, ask how they will know it worked.
That bathroom is still fine. No callbacks, no more water.
If you have got a shower doing something it should not, reach out and I will come take a look at it. Better to know what you are dealing with than to sit there wondering.