How To Tell If Pipes Are Behind A Bathroom Wall

And if it s behind a wall it never has a chance to dry.

How to tell if pipes are behind a bathroom wall. One rule of thumb is to be especially careful when drilling into any walls that connect to your bathroom or kitchen basically any wall that s likely to have pipes. It is possible to follow the water lines from the basement or crawl space to help determine the most likely path to sinks tubs toilets radiators and washing machines. However you won t know the exact location of the water lines in your walls until you use a pipe detector. Peeling paint or wallpaper on your walls.

A buckled cracked or water stained floor or ceiling especially in your bathroom. The water pipes and pipe connections for a shower faucet are behind the wall of the shower and a small drip or spray can go unnoticed for weeks or even months. Since water that leaks into walls never has a chance to dry out the walls will begin to give off a humid musty odor. There are easy and effective ways to know what s hiding in your home.

A vibrating tool with a circular blade will make nice clean sharp easily patchable holes without cutting so deep as to risk cutting the pipes. Drilling into a wall doesn t have to be a guessing game. The diy experts at stack exchange provide tips. In cases where a leak behind a wall isn t visible you may be able to detect the leak using your sense of smell.

The basement is the place where the pipes are usually exposed and not behind a wall. If none exists you will have to make one plus. If you do hit a pipe. If you have an upstairs bathroom you may notice dried water stains on the ceiling below the shower.

When someone is showering you might see water dripping from the ceiling. A wall that is warped or stained for no apparent reason. One of the tell tale signs of a water leak coming from a shower valve behind the wall are water stains. Make shallow cuts in the drywall.

How to fix a leaking pipe behind a wall. Most times shower valve leaks behind the wall are very slow. Therefore you will easily see if there s a leakage or anything wrong with them. Try to look for corrosion and leakage since these two are the best signs of a broken pipe.