Waterfall at Home

After I got out of the shower, Cari came running upstairs to tell me that water was flowing from the ceiling downstairs.  Somewhere around the upstairs bathtub, there was a leak.

I went downstairs and saw the water dripping pretty steadily from a huge wet spot in the textured ceiling.  The good news is that the leak was in the laundry room and not the dining room!  I took a knife, cut a hole into the ceiling, and water poured steadily onto my head.   For a moment, I thought about cutting a hole in the floor of the laundry room and just letting the water run straight down under the house.

Cari didn't like the idea of a waterfall at home, so I continued to investigate the leak.  From downstairs it was hard to see where the water originated.  It was leaching through some insulation and there is no telling how far the water traveled before dripping down.

Back upstairs with my knife, I started cutting a hole in the bedroom wall so that I could access the shower valve.  I identified that the water only leaked when the shower was on.  "Don't use this shower.", I declared.  Then I went to work.

That was a little more than a week ago and we still don't use the upstairs shower.  This is particularly annoying because the downstairs tub is filled with plastic bath toys and my arms are constantly bumping stuff.  Upstairs, we have a curved shower rod installed that makes the shower feel so much bigger.  Also, every morning getting ready for work, I constantly have to run from upstairs to downstairs as I try to put myself together.

Cari asked me when I would fix the shower and I told her it would be a few more days before I had time to do it.  I told her the leak may be up near the shower head in the wall and I would have to tear up more of our bedroom to get to it.  Hopefully not.

Last night, my family of plumbers did some testing to find the source of the leak.  Meredith took a bath upstairs and then Randy took a shower.  All the while, Cari was peering through the hole in the wall to watch for water drips.  She figured out the problem and determined that the tub spout was loose, allowing water from the shower to run behind the tub spout and into the back of the tub.   A little tightening and a little caulking, and the problem is fixed!

I caulked last night, so we'll see how it goes later this morning.  Hopefully the waterfall has been stopped.

Now someone has to fix the holes I cut.