As part of a major renovation to my home I am completely remodeling my basement bathroom. The project included moving the shower drain which was embedded in concrete about 4 inches to expand the shower. We made other changes as well, most notably including moving the toilet.
The bathroom shower work was completed about a three weeks ago but we then waiting 2 weeks for shower glass to be installed. My first time turning on the shower the next day, I found that the water did not drain at all.
After the contractor checked the sump, toilet in the bathroom, and other plumbing in the basement— which all worked perfectly—the contractor removed the standing water down to the level of the drain. After 36 hours later there was no seepage. The blockage had a perfect seal. He then brought two plumbers / sewer specialists who had not worked on the bathroom to run small and large steel augers into the drain pipe — both hit a blockage ~18 inches in that was hard enough to polish/clean the augers. They each told me they thought there was concrete in the pipe.
The contractor then responded to me that someone must have poured grout in the drain (fairly concerning to me since It meant he had some issues with subs on the project that I didn’t see) and that something like this had never happened before. He told me he would fix the drain by pulling up some tiles around the drain and cutting a small hole in the shower pan to replace the p trap and fix the blockage and then use a liquid repair kit to patch and seal the shower pan.
The next day, his two tile guys came to look at the drain and they found that the blockage was after the p trap — so it is hard to imagine how that could be caused by grout or something else poured into the pipe. I then hacked together a endoscope snake camera that we ran into the drain pipe and confirmed the p trap didn’t contain the blockage, but there was a layer of 2” of black material directly in front of the blockage. Based on the location and length of the snake scope we believe the blockage is roughly where the shower drain pipe combines with the toilet drain pipe near the edge of the shower before hitting the sewer line. Getting to that blockage requires pulling up tiles and cutting the shower pan almost all the way to the edge of the shower.
Now that it seems clear that most of the brand new shower tile floor, shower pan and tiles will have come up to access the blockage, does it make sense to rip it all out and replace the shower pan or can you ”patch” a hole in the shower pan that is almost the entire shower floor?
I don’t want some half-assed repair / patch that won’t last and I don’t fully trust my contractor right now to do this right. Accidents can happen but this level of incompetence doesn’t really give me much confidenceand I sense he is trying to do this as cheaply as possible.
I don’t imagine this problem comes up often with a brand new shower but any sense of how this type of repair is usually handled would be much appreciated.
The bathroom shower work was completed about a three weeks ago but we then waiting 2 weeks for shower glass to be installed. My first time turning on the shower the next day, I found that the water did not drain at all.
After the contractor checked the sump, toilet in the bathroom, and other plumbing in the basement— which all worked perfectly—the contractor removed the standing water down to the level of the drain. After 36 hours later there was no seepage. The blockage had a perfect seal. He then brought two plumbers / sewer specialists who had not worked on the bathroom to run small and large steel augers into the drain pipe — both hit a blockage ~18 inches in that was hard enough to polish/clean the augers. They each told me they thought there was concrete in the pipe.
The contractor then responded to me that someone must have poured grout in the drain (fairly concerning to me since It meant he had some issues with subs on the project that I didn’t see) and that something like this had never happened before. He told me he would fix the drain by pulling up some tiles around the drain and cutting a small hole in the shower pan to replace the p trap and fix the blockage and then use a liquid repair kit to patch and seal the shower pan.
The next day, his two tile guys came to look at the drain and they found that the blockage was after the p trap — so it is hard to imagine how that could be caused by grout or something else poured into the pipe. I then hacked together a endoscope snake camera that we ran into the drain pipe and confirmed the p trap didn’t contain the blockage, but there was a layer of 2” of black material directly in front of the blockage. Based on the location and length of the snake scope we believe the blockage is roughly where the shower drain pipe combines with the toilet drain pipe near the edge of the shower before hitting the sewer line. Getting to that blockage requires pulling up tiles and cutting the shower pan almost all the way to the edge of the shower.
Now that it seems clear that most of the brand new shower tile floor, shower pan and tiles will have come up to access the blockage, does it make sense to rip it all out and replace the shower pan or can you ”patch” a hole in the shower pan that is almost the entire shower floor?
I don’t want some half-assed repair / patch that won’t last and I don’t fully trust my contractor right now to do this right. Accidents can happen but this level of incompetence doesn’t really give me much confidenceand I sense he is trying to do this as cheaply as possible.
I don’t imagine this problem comes up often with a brand new shower but any sense of how this type of repair is usually handled would be much appreciated.
