I've got a leak in a shower. The shower cubicle has been added to a bedroom as an en-suite, by walling off one corner, but the wall I guess is not absolutely rigid, so there has been some cracking of the grout with use of the shower.

This only affects the bottom 3 rows of tiles, so I'm wondering about the best approach to dealing with it. Can I just scrape out the grout a bit and seal it with silicon? A man from DynaRod who was in dealing with a blockage said there are now adhesives that allow tiles to go on top of tiles - if this is so the easiest approach would be a second layer of tiles with flexible grout. The original ones are firmly attached, so removal and replacement would probably be the most slow and painful approach. Perhaps though it is the only certain one?

Any advice would be gratefully received

Robert

Hi there...... If you have movement in the wall, then the tiles are going to continue to fail, even if you re-tile. Do you have any pics to help us, help you.

If your tiles were firmly attached the grout should not be cracking. Do you know what brand of adhesive and grout was used?

I can easily get one tomorrow. There isn't a lot to see, just tiles with fine cracks in the grout. If there is movement it's pretty minimal - I was hoping that some kind of non-rigid grout would be able to deal with it. I've seen stuff with polymer in that claims to be able to handle slight movement.

Originally Posted by Brian J

If your tiles were firmly attached the grout should not be cracking. Do you know what brand of adhesive and grout was used?

Unfortunately not. I'm dealing with a lot of issues in a house that was done up and looked great when I bought it 6 years ago, but has subsequently turned out to have been done in a pretty slapdash way, so I can guess it would have been the cheapest the previous owners could find, but as to brand there's no way to know.

You can remove all of the old grout and use a two part flexible, that may solve the problem, but it does depend on how much movement there is.

if the grout is white you could try raking out and re-doing with bal wide joint and the admix solution,thats about as flexible as you will get,if that doesn't work then i would suggest removing and making the substrate more rigid

as David has sais above.

If there is a leak then there is a hole.
Where does it leak to and how much?
If it has been going on for a while (and most of them can be there for a long time before they become noticed) then there is black mold in the wall and floor wherever it has leaked to.
It may be minor and can then be given the band-aid approach of a better grout (maybe epoxy) which may seal the hole and prevent further leaking.
But certainly the cracked grout needs to be removed and the joints re-packed.

Thanks everyone. I'll start off by trying to rake out the old grout and redo it. Following up the BAL recommendation above I see they have something called 'Microflex wide joint grout' that has the additives already included for greater plasticity, plus agnets to inhibit black mould. that looks like it might be the thing. If removing the grout shows the tiles are loose I may be back for more advice...

please do.