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Home & Garden Articles
How To Keep Your Shower From Leaking And Preventive Maintenance
Sat 20 Jan 2007 - 15:21
How To Keep Your Shower From Leaking And Preventive Maintenance
By Anthony Ventura
New installations:
1. Make sure there are no holes in your shower pan. Have your contractor keep a piece of drywall in the pan during construction. This will protect it from nails and screws that happen to fall on the pan.
2. Make sure any debris does not block the weep holes at the bottom of the drain.
3. Your installer should not have any low areas in the cement work. This slopped cement is the foundation for the tile or marble and should slope from the wall to the drain in a strait line with no depressions.
4. As was stated in part 1 of this article, the finished shower floor should be installed before the finished walls.
5. Have your installer seal the tile grout joints You should keep them sealed with a penetrating sealer (every 6 months or so) this is very easy to do and will only take 5 to 10 minutes. This will keep the grout joints water tight and easier to keep clean
In the case of a marble shower floor it is even more important to keep the entire surface sealed. Just remember to make sure the stone is thoroughly dry before applying the sealer.
6. The tile needs to be cut tight to the drain so no leaks can occur.
7. Walls can crack in the corners even though they have been taped with fiberglass tape. A better system I have found is to reverse a vinyl corner bead and screw it to the inside corners. This makes it very hard for the walls to separate if they crack from expansion and contraction due to temperature changes or the house settling.
Existing shower floors:
1. Keep the tile grout joints or in the case of stone, sealed with penetrating sealer.If a crack appears where the marble or tile floor meets the walls do not use caulking to fill the crack.This eventually separates and water runs behind it.
2. If your shower floor is leaking sometimes you can save it if the walls and floor are not deteriorated and still solid. The first thing to do is check that the diverter is not causing the leak.If that is ok then place a fan in the shower or a small heater, dry it out and then regrout and seal joints.
Anthony J. Ventura has been in the marble and tile business
for 30 years as a contractor and advisor. He is also a manufacturer and importer of natural stone products
http://www.naturalstonesinksusa.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Anthony_Ventura
http://EzineArticles.com/?How-To-Keep-Your-Shower-From-Leaking-And-Preventive-Maintenance&id=421252
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