Plumbing – Leaking shower/tub enclosure

leakplumbing

I have an acrylic (maybe fiberglass) shower/tub enclosure. It leaks when the shower is in use, causing a stain to appear on the ceiling of the room below. The most likely culprit appears to be that there is a gap where the tub faucet comes out from the wall, maybe 1/4'' (the faucet is not flush with the enclosure buy that amount).

Is this likely to be the cause of the problem? If so, how could it best be repaired? I am inclined to try silicone caulk but the gap is fairly wide and I worry that it may look bad.

Edit: yes, by "tub faucet" I mean the pipe that the water comes out of when you're filling the tub.

Best Answer

I fixed the problem so I may as well answer my own question.

  • The spout was detachable from the pipe (it is held on by a mechanism which can be loosened by a hex wrench -- the nut is on the underside of the spout)

  • Once the spout is removed, you can caulk the gap where the pipe goes through the hole in the shower enclosure, and then re-attach the spout. There's no need to caulk around the spout itself.

  • I was able to re-attach the spout so there was not such a wide gap
    between it and the enclosure, though that's more of a cosmetic
    improvement than anything else.

There is a video of someone doing this repair here.