Shower and Bathtub Repair Across Northern Virginia

Why a bathtub drains slowly or holds water

A tub drain is a different animal from a sink drain, and in the older Northern Virginia housing stock it is usually far less accessible. There is no trap under the bowl to drop and clean — the trap sits below the floor, and everything between the tub and that trap is hidden inside the wall or the floor cavity.

Three things cause a tub to stop draining:

1. Hair and soap in the waste line. The usual cause, and usually clearable. We cable the line and treat it afterwards so it does not close up again within weeks.
2. A failed waste-and-overflow assembly. The linkage that lifts and drops the stopper runs up inside the wall to the overflow plate. When that linkage breaks or corrodes, the stopper sits part-closed permanently and the tub drains badly no matter how clear the pipe is. On one call a master bath tub came in as a clog; the waste-and-overflow assembly turned out to be broken, and although the tub drained after an unclogging attempt, replacing the assembly was the honest recommendation.
3. A blockage downstream. If another fixture on the same floor is slow at the same time, the tub is a symptom rather than the fault. That is drain cleaning work.

We attempt to clear a tub waste before recommending replacement of anything, and we say plainly where an unclogging attempt comes with no guarantee.

Bathtub waste and overflow: the assembly behind most tub drain problems

The waste and overflow is one piece of plumbing that people never see: the drain shoe at the tub bottom, the overflow tube rising behind the tub wall, the tee joining them, and the stopper linkage running inside. It is the part that leaks, and it is the part that stops tubs draining.

Replacing it means getting behind the tub, and that is the honest part of the conversation. Where an access panel exists we use it. Where one does not, we make one properly rather than opening a hole and leaving it: on one job the existing access panel behind the kitchen was cut down flush to the baseboard and a new panel installed, so the assembly stays reachable next time. Where the tub backs onto a finished wall with no access at all, the alternative is working from the front, and we will say which applies before anything is cut.

The assemblies we fit are chrome as standard, or brushed nickel where chrome is not in stock and the customer prefers the match. Where the drain shoe is being disturbed, the connection down to the trap gets looked at at the same time — there is no sense reassembling a tub over a joint that is already weeping.

Why a shower or bathtub diverter stops working

The diverter is what sends water from the tub spout up to the shower head. When it fails you get water at both outlets, water at the wrong one, or a trickle at the head while most of the flow runs into the tub.

On a tub-shower valve, the diverter is usually part of the cartridge, so a diverter fault and a valve fault are often the same repair. Two things decide whether it can be rebuilt:

• How long it has been leaking. A diverter that has been passing water for months is the one that worries us, because a cartridge that has been sitting wet and under pressure in a brass body tends to seize into the valve. We attempt the rebuild, and we say up front that a seized cartridge may not come out intact.
• Whether parts exist for the valve. Known brands are rebuildable. An unmarked or long-discontinued valve body often is not, and then the repair becomes a valve replacement with the wall opened.

Getting at an in-wall shower faucet usually means removing one vertical row of wall tile beside the valve — that is the standard access on a tiled wall, and the row is replaced afterwards, with an owner-approved substitute color where the original tile is no longer made. The valve and cartridge side of this is covered in full under shower faucet and valve repair.

One more thing worth saying: shower arms and heads seize. A homeowner who tried to change his own shower head found the old one locked solid on the arm nipple inside the wall, which turns a ten-minute swap into a job that has to be done without twisting the pipe behind the tile.

Shower and bathtub surrounds: tile, board and what sits behind them

The surround is the wet wall around a tub or shower, and how it was built decides how long it lasts. The thing we correct most often is tile installed straight over ordinary wallboard. Wallboard is not a wet-area substrate; it swells, loses its grip on the tile, and the tiles start letting go one at a time.

The signs a surround is failing rather than just looking tired:

• Loose tiles. A handful of tiles moving on one wall with failed grout and caulk around them is the classic presentation.
• Grout that will not stay in the joints, or caulk that pulls away again within weeks of being replaced.
• Soft or spongy wall behind the tile when you press it, particularly low down and at the corners.
• Staining or musty smell in the room on the other side of the wall.

When a surround is rebuilt, the tile and the board behind it come off to the ceiling and cement board goes back in their place — substrate on the wet walls rather than tiling over wallboard. Framing is inspected and secured with blocking where it needs it before anything is fastened to it. A recessed niche can be formed in the wall while it is open, tile is carried full height where the design calls for it, and the field is finished in sanded grout with silicone at every change of plane.

Where the surround itself is sound and only the joints have failed, this is maintenance rather than reconstruction: see bathroom regrouting.

Bathtub replacement and tub-to-shower conversion

A tub that is cracked, permanently stained or simply in the wrong place for the household gets replaced, and the two jobs we do most are a like-for-like tub swap and a conversion to a walk-in shower pan.

Either way the sequence is the same:

1. Floor and furniture protection goes in before anything is disturbed, because tile demolition travels through a finished house.
2. The surround tile and the wall board behind come off up to the ceiling, and the tub and its floor drain come out.
3. The subfloor and plywood under the tub are inspected and reported, and treated with mold control before anything new is set — long-term splashing at the tub edge does its damage underneath, where nobody looks.
4. The shower faucet, head and piping get replaced as needed while the wall is open, commonly with a single-handle valve, or a thermostatic mixing valve where the household wants one.
5. The new tub, or a new shower pan and floor drain, is set and tied into the existing plumbing.
6. Cement board, tile, sanded grout and silicone at the changes of plane, then the fixtures, trim and door or curtain rod.

Where a tiled shower floor is wanted rather than a molded pan, the traditional build still applies: a plastic membrane, then a poured concrete bed over wood blocking with a framed step, then tile. Where the work grows beyond the tub area into the whole room, it becomes bathroom remodeling.

Shower doors, enclosures and curtain rods

The enclosure is part of the fixture and it is usually the last thing anyone thinks about. A door that has dropped on its rollers, a frame whose seal has failed at the threshold, or a track that has come loose from tile lets water onto the bathroom floor every time it is used — which is how bathroom floors and the ceilings under them get damaged without any plumbing fault at all.

Glass doors come off and are reinstalled where the surround behind them is being worked on. Where a door is beyond saving, a stock shower door replaces it, and where a customer prefers a curtain we fit a new curtain and rod rather than reusing a rod that is already sagging. Doors going onto tile need the tracks bedded and sealed correctly; caulk at the threshold is what keeps water inside the tray, and it is a joint that needs renewing periodically rather than never.

Repair the shower and bathtub, or remodel the bathroom?

We would rather repair. A drain, a waste and overflow, a diverter, a door or a set of joints is a defined job that leaves the bathroom usable. But there are conditions where a repair is money spent on something that is already failing, and we will tell you when we see them:

• The substrate behind the tile has gone. Soft, swollen board behind a surround means water has been getting through for a long time, and new grout on top of it is a few months' delay.
• The subfloor or joists under the tub are damaged. We have opened bathroom floors where the damage ran through the subfloor into the joists and the structure needed reinforcing before anything else could be set on it.
• The pan is failing rather than the fixture. Water escaping the shower is a different job from a shower that will not work properly — see shower leak repair.
• Parts cannot be sourced. An unmarked or discontinued valve body with no available cartridge cannot be rebuilt by anyone, and we say so rather than charge you to find out.

Where the answer is repair, it is a repair. Where it is not, we show you why before you decide.

What a shower and bathtub repair visit includes

1. Run the fixture and watch it. Fill and release the tub, work the diverter, run the head and the spout in turn, and check where the water actually goes.
2. Check the drain properly — cable the waste line where it is slow, and look at what comes back before deciding whether the assembly behind it is the problem.
3. Inspect the surround and the joints. Press the wall low down and at the corners, and look at the caulk at every change of plane.
4. Find the access. Locate an existing panel behind the tub, or establish what making one properly would involve, before anything is opened.
5. Show you what was found, photographed where it sits inside a wall or under a floor.
6. Do the work and test it with the water running, and protect floors and furniture from dust throughout.

Where a wall or floor comes open, whatever is behind it gets inspected and reported — framing, subfloor and plywood — and treated with mold control where it has been wet, rather than closed back up unseen.

What shower and bathtub repair costs, and how we price it

We do not quote this work by phone and we do not publish numbers. A tub that will not drain can be a cable and a treatment, or a waste-and-overflow assembly with an access panel that has to be built to reach it. A diverter can be a cartridge, or a seized valve body behind a tiled wall. Nobody can tell which from a description.

An estimator comes to the property, works the fixture, looks at the access, and gives you a written price for the work in front of him before anything begins. Permit and permit processing fees are included in that price where the work requires a permit, and permitted work is performed to the Virginia building code and inspected before the job closes out.