how to clean weep holes in shower drain

03-22-2015, 08:02 AM

I have a river rock shower floor with severe efflorescence (photo). It is 5 feet by 5 feet with marble tile walls, so I strongly want to restore it; demolition is a last resort. I would like to fix the causes, one of which may be a drain that seems to have no weep holes. The drain does not look like shower drains I have seen or read about on the web (next photo).

The drain appears to have two brass pieces. I unscrewed the top piece (barrel?), which had been caulked to the floor. Its flange is stamped AB&A ( made by IPS Corp) but shows no part number. The third photo shows the barrel and the bottom piece of the drain, which sits about 3/4 inch below the floor. The 4th photo shows a closer view of the drain. Before I cleaned the threads of the bottom piece, the threads had a crust of efflorescence on them. You can still see some.

Between the top of the bottom piece and the mud under the river rock is a gap about 1/32-1/16 inches high (5th photo, using a mirror). I can insert a wire about 3/4 inch into this gap. The wire hits something hard and will go no further.

If this gap is the drain's weep hole, the only way water can exit is by flowing between the top and bottom drain pieces. Whoever installed the drain used Teflon tape on the threads, which would seem to block any weeping.

My questions:

Do you recognize this drain as a suitable drain for a shower?

Do you think the gap above the bottom part is the weep hole for the drain?

Would it make sense to drill holes in the top piece at the same level as the gap to aid in weeping?

If yes, do I need to caulk the top part to the shower floor?

Thanks for any help.

03-22-2015, 08:29 AM

Weep holes are down below the surface of the floor 1 1/2 to 2 inches. And we can see your riser pipe so I don't think this type drain has weep holes. This reminds me of outside showers where the drain is built right into the concrete slab without a shower pan liner.

Do you have access behind the walls anywhere to see if a pan liner folds up behind the marble ? With this drain, I don't see anyplace a liner would clamp into it.

03-22-2015, 10:25 AM

I cannot access behind wall unless I did some demo. I have read in some areas of country a "hot mop" installation is done. If that were the case what type of drain is used? A two part drain like the one pictured here? This shower was installed 10 years ago and there has not been a leak. If there were no weep holes wouldn't that have happened?

What seems to be the case is a lack of maintenance: grout and caulk have fallen out and perhaps a sealant was applied to the river rock. I have used a Stonetech product to try to remove efflorescence along with a lot of elbow grease. I got most of it off but there was a white haze over river rock and grout when I was done. I called Stonetech and they indicated that a sealant may have been applied and was now degraded. So I have been using a Stonetech stripper. I then plan on getting the remaining efflorescence off and perhaps using a Stonetech sealer and enhancer to improve appearance. I will also be replacing missing grout and using a sanded caulk at any change of plane (walls to floor and corners).

If anyone can supply more information on the drain, alternate installations of these type of showers it would be greatly appreciated.

03-22-2015, 10:36 AM

Welcome, Lex.

That's not the type of drain commonly used for hot-mop shower pans, either.

If you'll add a geographic location to your User Profile it might help us guess how that shower pan was constructed.

I see you've started another thread for your cleaning and sealing issues, so best to keep that discussion over there. Or we can combine that thread here if they start getting duplicate responses.

03-22-2015, 12:06 PM

Well, some of us are gonna guess what you have is a copper shower pan and if you narrowed your location a bit more and we found you were in or near Boston a lot more of us would make the same guess.

That could be a drain designed to solder into a copper pan and fit over a PVC pipe with a press-fit gasket.

That could also explain some of your surface problems on accounta that pan's not gonna have any pre-slope at all and is likely holding water in the bottom. Where the necessary weep holes might be I cannot answer and everything above is nothing more than a guess.

My opinion; worth price charged.

03-22-2015, 01:04 PM

Being a Massachusetts guy , who is all to familiar with the copper pans and the problems that go along with them, my guess would be thats exactly what you have. From the picture my guess would be its a copper pan that sits flat on the subfloor with a drain that has no business being in a shower.

Because the pan sits flat on the floor the water that gets into the mud bed just sits there. In your case the incorrect drain compounds that issue because not only does it have no pitch, even if it did there is no way for it to drain.

This is the exact reason why your having major efflorescence issues - everything is staying so wet. Even if you managed to clean up the shower, your going to constantly have an issue with the efflorescence coming back.

03-22-2015, 02:20 PM

Lex, not every shower in MA is built with a copper pan. I will say that I have replaced lots of them over the years though. It blows my mind that people still use them today and building inspectors still approve them.

I have seen some copper pan showers that were as old as me that were perfectly fine though.

Where about are you located? If your say in western mass, you dont see copper pans all that often. But if your in Boston metro, you will see plenty of them. Ive lived in, and work in, both sides of the state so I have seen it all. It crazy how things are done so differently in areas not even 100 miles away.

03-23-2015, 11:22 AM

Copper Pans and Shower Pans custom fabricated - Riverside

I decided to include a discussion of what I found to help someone else out who might be trying to track down what is what with their shower since there seems to be much more information on membrane- type (e.g., Kerdi Schluter) shower installations on this forum....

www.riversidesheetmetal.net/copper-pans/

Riverside also provides and installs IPS drains. Copper pans are normally 6" tall, but vary depending on the project. We also fabricate shower pans with 48 oz ...

11:57 AM

I thought I'd post our progress - perhaps this might help someone else trying to restore travertine/river rock shower:
We have stripped off the topical sealer, gotten rid of most of the efflorescence; and figured out that the groove is actually a very large weep hole.

We will next be caulking the change of plane with sanded caulk. We have noticed a couple of very small pinholes in the grout where the pebbles were very close together and water goes down there. They also happen to be the places where there was the most efflorescence. Not quite sure what to do here because if we chip out a bigger area of grout not sure that we could fill the space it is so narrow. Any suggestions? Would it be ok just to use some of the caulk and periodically make sure that the caulk was intact?

Regarding the weep hole/crevice/groove we saw after rinsing floor with drain top off/open that water actually weeped fairly quickly out of the groove and down the drain. So once we put the drain back together we will not redo the Teflon tape because we think that would have interfered with the water's ability to weep down the threads of the drain -- potentially causing efflorescense.

Also I think there is some type of membrane because the water so quickly came out of the groove and as we stood on that part of the shower we could see the river rock flex by looking at the drain and water came out even more quickly; I also think it is sloped since water was slowly weeping without standing on shower floor -- so as I was hoping this appears to be a mostly well thought out installation: copper pan, sloping membrane, weep hole/crevice.

It looks like there may have been just a lack of maintenance and then a few years after installation the second owner of shower put a topical sealant on shower floor. When we are done I will try to post a picture.

Any comments/suggestions are always welcome.

04-03-2015, 02:39 PM

Boston has some very weird, outdated plumbing practices. Plumbing code requires the waterproof layer (this is NOT the tile, it is the liner) to be sloped to the drain. While it is possible to build a copper pan with a slope, VERY few of them are done that way. That the plumbing inspectors ignore that provision in the code is beyond me. The only good thing is, they do not leak when installed with some care and can last a fair amount of time. MA also has some fairly strict plumbing practices...the only people that can do any plumbing in MA, even in a single family home, is someone with a state plumber's license. This can make the shower waterproofing messy, since the liner is technically part of the plumbing, and scheduling the framer, the plumber, and the tile guy means that the pan often sits flat on the floor. But, again, it DOES NOT MEET NATIONAL PLUMBING CODES unless it is sloped!

IF yours is that way, no matter what you do, you will continue to have efflorescence issues. It would likely take decades for all of the soluble salts in the sand, cement, fill to be washed out of the setting bed before there is nothing left to effloresce.

04-03-2015, 01:50 PM	#14
Moderator emeritus Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Boerne, Texas Posts: 94,172	Not sure what you might be calling a membrane, Lex. In your application with the copper pan liner the copper would be your waterproofing membrane.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Shower Drain Weep Hole Question	peaks	Tile Forum/Advice Board	11	11-14-2016 07:37 PM
shower drain weep holes	Vicki	Tile Forum/Advice Board	3	11-16-2006 08:44 AM
Shower Drain Weep Holes?	rmcel123	Tile Forum/Advice Board	21	08-04-2006 04:51 AM
Shower Drain Weep Holes and Drain Canals	Electrician Al	Tile Forum/Advice Board	1	01-16-2006 09:06 AM
Shower drain / weep holes	vietco	Tile Forum/Advice Board	10	06-26-2004 02:11 AM

how to clean weep holes in shower drain

how to clean weep holes in shower drain

0 Response to "how to clean weep holes in shower drain"

Post a Comment

Iklan Atas Artikel

Iklan Tengah Artikel 1

Iklan Tengah Artikel 2

Iklan Bawah Artikel

03-22-2015, 08:29 AM	#2
Moderator -- Mud Man Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Princeton,Tx.- Dallas area Posts: 33,663	Weep holes are down below the surface of the floor 1 1/2 to 2 inches. And we can see your riser pipe so I don't think this type drain has weep holes. This reminds me of outside showers where the drain is built right into the concrete slab without a shower pan liner. Do you have access behind the walls anywhere to see if a pan liner folds up behind the marble ? With this drain, I don't see anyplace a liner would clamp into it.

03-22-2015, 10:36 AM	#4
Moderator emeritus Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Boerne, Texas Posts: 94,172	Welcome, Lex. That's not the type of drain commonly used for hot-mop shower pans, either. If you'll add a geographic location to your User Profile it might help us guess how that shower pan was constructed. I see you've started another thread for your cleaning and sealing issues, so best to keep that discussion over there. Or we can combine that thread here if they start getting duplicate responses.

03-22-2015, 12:06 PM	#6
Moderator emeritus Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Boerne, Texas Posts: 94,172	Well, some of us are gonna guess what you have is a copper shower pan and if you narrowed your location a bit more and we found you were in or near Boston a lot more of us would make the same guess. That could be a drain designed to solder into a copper pan and fit over a PVC pipe with a press-fit gasket. That could also explain some of your surface problems on accounta that pan's not gonna have any pre-slope at all and is likely holding water in the bottom. Where the necessary weep holes might be I cannot answer and everything above is nothing more than a guess. My opinion; worth price charged.

03-22-2015, 01:04 PM	#8
Registered User Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 471	Being a Massachusetts guy , who is all to familiar with the copper pans and the problems that go along with them, my guess would be thats exactly what you have. From the picture my guess would be its a copper pan that sits flat on the subfloor with a drain that has no business being in a shower. Because the pan sits flat on the floor the water that gets into the mud bed just sits there. In your case the incorrect drain compounds that issue because not only does it have no pitch, even if it did there is no way for it to drain. This is the exact reason why your having major efflorescence issues - everything is staying so wet. Even if you managed to clean up the shower, your going to constantly have an issue with the efflorescence coming back.

03-22-2015, 02:20 PM	#10
Registered User Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 471	Lex, not every shower in MA is built with a copper pan. I will say that I have replaced lots of them over the years though. It blows my mind that people still use them today and building inspectors still approve them. I have seen some copper pan showers that were as old as me that were perfectly fine though. Where about are you located? If your say in western mass, you dont see copper pans all that often. But if your in Boston metro, you will see plenty of them. Ive lived in, and work in, both sides of the state so I have seen it all. It crazy how things are done so differently in areas not even 100 miles away.