# Can't access shower plumbing, need ideas.



## lowercaseletter (Feb 26, 2011)

I have a shower stall in a bathroom off from the master bedroom. It's been leaking into the basement from the hot and/or cold water pipe from behind the wall. The issue is that the shower stall from the front has no access since it is all plastic surround and on the back side is my other bathroom which is surrounded in tile (no plumbing for other bathroom is on the other side).

I need help with accessing the pipes for the shower stall, but it seems like I'm going to have to cut out tiles and drywall from the other side. Any other suggestions?

Also, should I need to cut out the tile, how can I replace a piece of drywall and tiles? I'm thinking it's easier to just remodel the main bathroom in drywall to get rid of all the tile and do the repair on the shower stall in the other bathroom all in one.

Any help is much appreciated.


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## VIPlumber (Aug 2, 2010)

Sorry to tell you this but you'll have to tear up something, probably the tile, in order to access the leaking pipe(s). There' no other way that I can think of.

How you finish off the torn out section of wall is your call. Personally, I'd redo the whole thing in drywall.


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## handy andy (Feb 25, 2011)

*How much leak?*

Do you get water dripping all the time or only when you use the shower? Are you sure it is not the drain?

I have had to repair a problem where the shower head pipe was broken where it screwed into the wall. This is the little pipe that the shower head attaches to. Fortunately, I was able to remove it (it was plastic and simply broke) and replace it with a proper metal one. The biggest problem was drying out the wall where the water had leaked. We were able to cut a hole in the drywall next to the shower and with a fan running for a week, it was dry enough to close in and repair only drywall.


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## Mike Swearingen (Mar 15, 2005)

You do not necessarily have to cut in from the back side. 
Depends on where the leak is. If it's in the faucet (which is most likely), you very well could be good-to-go in this direction....
There are shower and tub faucets with large estucheon plates to cover a larger access hole cut in the shower to the plumbing from the front side. They come with templates and are large enough to repair or to remove the old and replace with new.
Call pro plumber supply houses or search the Internet for them.
I've seen them used and they work just fine in most cases for just this type of situation.
Good luck!
Mike


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