Water pooling by the bath or shower tray: where it comes from

First: work out exactly where the water is coming from

Before deciding anything, dry the floor completely, run the shower or fill the bath a little, and watch. Note whether water appears while the water is running, only after it drains away, or even when the bathroom has not been used — the last points to condensation or a slow supply leak rather than a waste problem.

Check whether the water is clean or has a soapy, greyish tint. Clean water pooling only during use often means splash-out finding a gap, while cloudy water appearing after draining usually means the waste itself is not carrying everything away.

It also matters where exactly the puddle starts. Water at the front edge of the tray points to the silicone joint or panel; water directly under the waste, often with staining on the floor below in a multi-storey building, points to the trap or pipe connection.

The waste trap and the drain connection

The most common source is the waste itself: the flexible pipe connecting the tray or bath outlet to the trap, and the trap connecting to the wall or floor drain. These push-fit or threaded joints can loosen slightly over years of use, or the trap can crack where it flexes each time the tray is stepped on.

To check it, most trays and some baths have an access panel — remove it and look at the trap and pipework directly while someone runs the water. A steady drip from a joint or a hairline crack in the plastic trap is a straightforward repair or replacement, usually well within an hour of work.

If there is no access panel, or the leak seems to come from a sealed section under a tiled bath panel, this is worth having a plumber open up rather than guessing at, since cutting into a panel or tiling without knowing the cause can mean redoing finish work unnecessarily.

The silicone joint between the floor and the tray or bath

The bead of silicone where the tray or bath edge meets the floor tile is a wear item, not a permanent seal. It hardens, shrinks, and pulls away from one surface or the other over a few years, and once there is a gap, splash water finds it every time.

Look closely along the joint for a hairline gap, a section that has gone grey or mouldy, or silicone that has lifted cleanly away from the tile. Press gently along the joint while the floor is dry — if it moves or you can see daylight through it, that is your answer.

This is one of the cheaper problems to have and one of the easier to get wrong doing it yourself, since old silicone has to be fully cut out and the surface degreased before new sealant is applied, or it fails again within months. We do silicone sealing from 45 € per job if you would rather it was done properly once.

• Dry the joint fully and check for grey, mouldy, or lifted silicone
• Press along the bead to feel for movement or gaps
• Cut out old silicone completely rather than sealing over it
• Degrease and dry the surface before applying new silicone
• Leave the new bead untouched for the curing time stated on the tube

Tray flex and cracks

Cheaper acrylic or fibreglass shower trays can flex slightly underfoot, especially if they were not fully supported on a bed of mortar or adjustable feet when fitted. Over time that flex works the silicone joint loose from the tray side even if the floor side is fine, and in worse cases it can crack the tray itself.

Stand in the middle of the tray and rock your weight — a small amount of give is normal on some trays, but visible flex of several millimetres, or a creaking sound, means the tray is not properly supported underneath and the leak will keep coming back however often the silicone is redone.

A cracked tray cannot be sealed around the problem; it needs replacing. If you are at that point anyway, it is often worth fitting a shower enclosure at the same time rather than matching an old tray, which we do from 150 € per job depending on the enclosure and access.

What needs sorting now and what can wait

A leak from a cracked trap or a loose waste connection should not wait, particularly in an apartment block, since water tracking into the floor structure or the flat below is the kind of damage that gets expensive and awkward with the korteriühistu. Turn off use of that bath or shower until it is checked.

A worn silicone joint with no sign of flex or structural movement is lower urgency — it is not going to cause sudden damage, but every day it is left, a small amount of water gets behind the tray edge or into the floor build-up, so it is worth booking rather than ignoring indefinitely.

Tray flex without an active leak is worth monitoring and fixing at the next convenient point; tray flex with water already appearing is a sign the support has failed and should be treated with the same urgency as a cracked waste.