You may think your shower is in tip top shape – gleamingly clean (sometimes, after you’ve scrubbed for hours), structurally sound (besides the grout grade), sealed tight (mostly, you hear a drip-drip-drip from time to time) and ready for a good many years of continuous use. What you’re not seeing is the leaky shower drain, the leaky shower floor or the shower leaking inside wall – your bathroom is all the evidence you need. Something has gone wrong. Something is amiss and the leaky shower grout is only the beginning.

Danger Sign 1: Mould Build Up & Dampness

We’re all familiar with the insidious nature of mould – it smells, it’s moist and prone to spreading as soon as it appears. It’s also near impossible to eliminate once it has taken hold. While you think you’ve finally conquered the mottled spread, there’s more to beating mould than banishing it from a leaky shower enclosure. Mould can also eat into the skirting boards and weaken the foundations of your bathroom, contributing to weakened grout if left to fester.

Danger Sign 2: Peeling Paint

Like skin peeling after a particularly vicious sunburn, paint reacts to a constantly damp environment by flaking, cracking and eventually falling away completely. Serial renters will be familiar with the look, as a peeling roof, bathroom wall (or walls) and exterior paint cracks all lead back to the same thing – a shower leaking behind the wall. Even if you spot the same fissues appearing above your TV in the living room or across the roof in the kitchen, it usually starts in the same place. And it is wet, moist and perfect for those little snow-balling instances.

Danger Sign 3: Grout…What Grout?

Grout is the sandy, rough substance holding everything together. A healthy grout should be unstained, uniform and unchipped, sealed and maintained for lasting performance. A damaged grout is the perfect breeding ground for water damage, as splashback and moisture siphons through the cracks and spreads into the walls and floors, putting your structure at risk of losing integrity. Enter building movement (your house moves ever so slightly occasionally) and membrane failure and you have a recipe for disaster.

What Can I Do?

Take a breath and run your eyes over your bathroom area honestly. What have you been ignoring? Is there anything you’ve been choosing not to see, as you go about your morning rituals? Take stock of the room and identify what could be causing the leak – even if it seems tiny. When the professionals come knocking, your insights can mean the difference between a long downtime and a speedy leaky shower repair. The fitting solution may not always be obvious, so don’t despair if you can’t automatically deduce what’s wrong.

Don’t let a leaky shower head turn into an expensive nightmare. Contact a solid brand like Megasealed and let the professionals take it from here. After all, you have better things to do than scrub away mould on a Saturday. Get your weekends back.