In a tower the flat below yours is directly beneath your bathroom, and in a mixed-use building it may not even be a flat. That raises the stakes on the one part of an enclosure people never think about, which is what happens at the base, and it is where we spend the most care in these buildings.
The base detail is the whole job
Almost every leak from a shower enclosure comes from the same place: the bottom corner where the fixed panel meets the wall and the floor.\n\nWater gets into that joint, tracks along the wall base and appears somewhere else entirely, often a floor below.\n\nSo we silicone the inside of that corner rather than the outside, which stops water entering the joint instead of trapping it once it has. Sealing the outside looks tidier and is the commonest reason a properly fitted enclosure still leaks.
Checking the waterproofing rather than trusting it
Under the tiling there should be a waterproof layer turned up the wall, and in a flat you did not build there is no way to know whether there is.\n\nWhat we can check is whether any tile sounds hollow, whether the grout in the wet area has failed, and whether there is any staining at the skirting of the room below the bathroom wall.\n\nWhere any of those shows, we say so before fitting. Putting new glass over a bathroom that is already letting water through fixes the appearance and guarantees the next leak is blamed on us.
Asking about the flat below
We ask directly whether the flat or unit below has ever reported damp, because the answer changes what we do.\n\nWhere it has, something is already wrong and the enclosure is very rarely it — but the enclosure is what will get blamed once it is new.\n\nSo in that situation we would rather establish the cause first, even though it delays our own job. It protects you as much as us, and in a mixed-use tower where the floor below may be commercial, it protects against a considerably larger claim.
How the job works
- Tell us about the jobSend a few photos, rough sizes and what you need. Use WhatsApp or the form. For a repair, a short video of the door moving helps a lot.
- We call you back in about 2 minutesWe confirm what you need and a time to visit. Where we can, we give you a rough price on the call.
- We come and measureWe measure the opening and check the walls, floor and ceiling around it. Anything made to size is made to these measurements, so they must be right.
- You get a written priceIt lists each item, with GST as its own line. If anything about the job changes, we tell you before we go ahead.
- We fit itYou approve the price and pay the advance. Our own team fits the work, checks that every door and window opens and closes properly, and clears up. Most jobs are done in 3 to 4 days.
