Margaret (pling) wrote,
Margaret
pling
  • Mood: aggravated
  • Music: The White Stripes "Under Great White Northern Lights"

Bath Sealant Woes :/

I swear, every time I think the seal at the back of the bath is fixed and I can put the side of the bath back on it starts letting the water through again. Happened again this week - Wednesday morning I thought to myself as part of my general tidy-up of the house how it'd be nice to move the side of the bath out of our room ... and noticed it was damp underneath the bath. Damn. Close inspection revealed what looked like a couple of wee holes in the seal at the back (the side under the shower, inconveniently), and the seal round the overflow pipe was also beginning to go. So slapped more sealant-gunk-stuff onto the bits that looked not quite right, but unfortunately I didn't realise that the shower drips (something else in the bathroom working up to break) right onto the overflow bit, so I had to re-do that yesterday with the showerhead lying in the bath so it didn't wash off the sealant. Hopefully fixed now? I have yet to closely inspect it this morning, I'm putting off the evil hour ;)

It looks like a bit of a dog's breakfast now to be honest, I've patched up the patching up so many times. And once again I'm wondering if I should just give in & pay someone who knows what they're doing to fix it. Except it was a plumber that caused the original problem - and his half-arsed "fix" that is what gave way and I'm trying to fix now. He changed the taps on the bath, and somehow managed to damage the seal behind the taps such that if you had a shower water sheeted down the wall in the kitchen ... luckily that was at a point where we had no kitchen ceiling anyway ;) When I called back the company to point out this was happening and could they fix it, the secretary told me you should expect it to leak after you've had the taps changed?!? They did eventually send (unfortunately, the same) plumber back and he kinda almost fixed it by slapping more sealant on till it only dripped a bit. And I patched that up till it was watertight (and actually they never invoiced us for any of that job, so at least we didn't pay for the crap). But it started leaking again ... over a year ago? I tried just patching it again first, then after several attempts not quite working well enough I took all the accumulated sealant off and started again. That did kinda reveal what I suspect is the actual problem - the tiles aren't well cut, so there's a fairly large & irregular gap along the edge of the bath. I think I'm maybe supposed to have filled it with something before putting the sealant on. But after a couple of iterations I really thought I'd fixed it last time, till it leaked :/ Maybe this time? Please? But whatever happens, I'll end up leaving the side of the bath off for another couple of months, just to be "sure" ;)
Tags: house, plumbing
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