Stain on kitchen ceiling from water leak

westside

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A stain from a water leak is appearing on my kitchen ceiling.
There is an ensuite bathroom above the area with staining. I know that 2 waste water pipes (one from the ensuite sink and shower) run across that part of the kitchen ceiling to the outside of the house. I am not sure whether it is the shower or sink waster water that is leaking

I am wondering what is the best way to try to find and repair the leak and would appreciate any suggestions.
 
Before you rip up the floor, check:
any recent plumbing work?
Check the waste trap behind the sink pedestal and tighten by hand if you can. Run water into sink and then feel pipe behind pedestal. If wet at all, it may be the culprit.
Has the sealant between the shower walls and tray become loose? If so, strip away the old sealant, clean the area of remnants of old sealant with methylated spirites(careful, wear gloves and ventilate room) and re-apply sealant(make sure you get bathroom grade sealant).

If all this fails, call a handyman/plumber.
 
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We had the same problem and it turned out to be the tiling on the shower allowing water through (no tanking). Simple enough to fix but caused a lot of water damage through tiny gaps in tiling.
 
Slim/Jessie - I really appreciate the sound advice. I will re-seal around the shower tray as suggested as a first step and check the piping behind the pedestal.
 
Guys,

After getting a measuring tape out and comparing location of leak to location of shower tray I ruled out the shower tray being the cause. The water leak was much closer to the sink. I could see that the was water pipe for the sink runs right across the spot where the leak was occuring.

My next course of action was to cut out a piece of the kitchen ceiling platerboard and sure enought I immediately found the problem. There is a long length of pipe (1 1/2") that is joined with a shortler length and where the pipe was pushed into the joint the pipe cracked. It looks like the plumber simply put some sealant/glue into the crack rather than actually fix it by removed the damaged pipe.

Thanks to all for the useful suggestions.
 
My next course of action was to cut out a piece of the kitchen ceiling platerboard and sure enought I immediately found the problem.

May I ask why you cut the ceiling and not the floor in the bathroom? Slim
 
Slim, To go down via the bathroom would have involved breaking the floor tiles and then cutting though the floor. I would then have had a problem trying to find the same floor tile again. Once I repair the pipe I have a new piece of plasterboard that I will screw back into the joices, then plaster and paint.
 
We had the same problem, find leak between bath and wall because of old silicon, but plasterboard of ceiling looks to bad for repaint. My wife pushing me to order stretch ceiling from [FONT=&quot]www.flexo.ie[/FONT][FONT=&quot] but I don’t really believe that it is not required any maintenance for 10 years. [/FONT]
 
Not familiar with flexo.. Though it is important that the bath is correctly sealed before you fix sealing..When we replaced bathroom furniture, we installed this flexible membane called 'classic seal' Must say was best 50 euro ever spent as had major issue with leakage in silicon joint previously.. The classic seal material is like the old tyre tube... approx 3m roll which is approx 100mm high... 50mm of the 100mm sticks to outside of the bath with the other 50mm behind the bottom row of tiles... in this way water that pools on top of the bath has to drain into the bath... for aesthetic reasons, still have a silicon bead along the edge of the bath
 
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