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Recently purchased house: Intending to remodel a rarely-used upstairs 3/4 bathroom. The room is "huge" with a skylight and a lot of unused space. Planning to completely remove the shower and put in a free-standing tub (if the floor will support it) with shower.
I could do this immediately, but I'd prefer to wait a year or two in order to be sure that this is really what I want to put in.
The problem is the current shower has significant cracking in the tile on the sides. The floor looks okay, but the walls have several cracks that run for two to three feet across multiple tiles. There was some indication of previous water damage on the downstairs ceiling, likely from the shower. It is unknown if this problem was ever corrected. A contractor (not mine) opened it and didn't find any leakage, but who knows how thorough they were, or if they bothered to even flood-test? My worst-case assumption is that the cement board, or whatever waterproofing they did, is completely screwed up, the walls have warped, thus causing the cracking. It has probably dried out because it hasn't used in quite some time (thus no evidence of current leakage) but I have to assume that the shower is unusable in its present state.
My options seem to be:
1. Don't use the shower until the renovation (not really feasible).
2. Tear out the tile, fix the root problem, re-tile the shower (don't want to put so much effort into a shower I'm going to demolish in a year or two.)
3. Try to seal the exterior of the shower and limit usage, to avoid further leakage (preferred option).
4. Renovate now (Don't want to do this, either).
Has anyone had experience with any external shower/tile sealing products? I've seen a few on the market, but I don't know how well they'd work for a kludge repair job until I renovate. The shower will sit unused when we don't have guests, but it could be used daily for a months at a time when family visits. I have a few months before it will see any use.
You definitely run the risk of further moisture damage to the drywall under the tile. If your house is older, the sheetrock (whether moisture proof or not at installation) will have already started to deteriorate because someone has been using that shower for ? who knows ? how long. I say "moisture proof or not" because I have discovered many times when ordering a repair that the builder used plain old sheetrock in the shower stalls.
We had to put off a similar (altho smaller) repair in a rental due to the tenant's situation <sigh> So the contractor put a large sheet of vinyl over the area and taped it securely so no water could get on the tile. You might do that instead of the silicone. Personally I would make this a priority because where water damage or leaking is concerned, it only gets worse.
You're going to want someone to do this repair who will check well beyond the cracked area's perimeter for moisture damage to the wallboard and studs.
If there are signs of leaking, there is a good chance it wasn't fixed properly is there are still cracked/loose tiles.
Tap on the tiles with your knuckles and you should be able to tell from the sound if they are loose (the sound changes).
If the tiles are loose, then caulking will likely not be a great fix, since they will flex and you won't get a good seal. If you really only want to do a temporary fix until you have time to gut the tub surround and start over, then tape plastic sheeting to the walls (like a shower curtain) using a very aggressive tape.
I've seen too many crappy caulking jobs that still allowed water to get behind the tiles.
Or just bite the bullet and redo the surround now. Take it down to the studs if you have to.
How big are the cracks? if they are really wide you can try some grout too. Can you pop/chip the tiles off scrape the old thinset off and just get some new tiles and butter them up and stick them where the old tiles were?
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