When we bought our house 3 years ago, we could see that some remod activities had been done poorly, but we had no idea just how poorly it was done. The PO had DIY'ed all sorts of things badly or hired the absolute cheapest idiot with a hammer to do them. Examples:
* When water intrusion started rotting out the wood supporting the house, he hammered some boards over the damage to conceal it while supporting the floor. All this while not fixing the problem causing the water intrusion - incorrect deck installation. Fooled one inspector and two termite guys. See
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/do-it-yourself-forum!/your-nightmare-project-my-piece-of-cake/msg2809183/#msg2809183 for grisly details.
* We soon discovered cold air blowing in from under the sinks in the winter, because the gaps around the pipes were literally open to the crawl space.
*The bathroom sink unit was not actually attached to the wall.
*The clay sewer pipe had a tree planted right on top of it.
*The return line on the heat pump was not insulated, allowing condensation to form, causing a water stain in the ceiling.
*Closets were added by using two nails and LIQUID NAILS to hold the new walls to the old sheetrock. It mostly ripped out by hand.
*A ceiling fan was attached to an unsupported electrical box. Lots of ungrounded new work too.
*An addition had large holes in the wood around the outside walls. Rats could get under the house by simply pushing the vinyl siding aside. 3 infestations later we figured it out.
*Did not tile under the stove, fridge, or laundry machines. Everything was propped up on shims because slapping down a couple more tiles was too much work.
*No pan under the water heater, so when it leaked in Dec. 2021, it spilled all over the bathroom in which it was located. That's OK, tile floor. Oh wait, he didn't tile under the water heater. In fact, he put little carpet squares under the WH for some reason.
*Once the WH and its flimsy closet were ripped out of the way, we discovered that we had soaking wet particle board under our tile floor in the bathroom. Not OSB - actual particle board in a bath/laundry - and as an underlayment for tile. That's why the tiles kept cracking! This turned a WH replacement into a rip-the floor out down to the subfloor, to-the-studs remod job. The whole thing was a time bomb.
In the midst of this bathroom remod job, the question arose as to
whether we should keep the existing shower which was done in the same 2007-2009 timeframe. It physically looks OK, but given how everything else was done it is questionable whether the tile walls were installed correctly, with the right mortar and waterproofing membrane. Look up "tile shower fail" on YouTube for an example of the potential consequences. Here are more details about the shower:
*When we bought the house, the faucet handle was missing. The agent explained that the PO "lost" it. We now doubt that the shower was ever used, so we can't say for sure that it doesn't have problems just because it's been there a while. We used it 3 times after finding the exact right handle on eBay.
*The base is plastic and looks to be intact. Minor stains.
*There are no water stains under the shower. Then again, it hasn't been used.
*The shower sits on top of 3/4" particle board on top of 3/4" plywood. If ripped out, we would remove the particle board and install plywood under it, to the extent possible (the walls sit on the particle board too).
*The house has another full bathroom.
*There are 2 different colors of grout used. It's a subtle flaw, but DW notices, and it's like a signature of someone not knowing what they were doing.
*The tiles go up to the ceiling and cover the ceiling.
*Our flooring contractor quoted us $3,250 to install a Schluter shower system if we tear out the old one. I've seen YouTube videos of these failing and rotting out entire houses too. So I'm in favor of self-installing a $500 plastic surround and tub kit. That should be cheaper, less risky, and easier to clean than grout.
DW thinks we should redo the entire bathroom and not leave the questionable shower. We've been through enough blowups with the PO's modifications that she anticipates the shower will become its own nightmare in the future. We know it was done amateurishly, by someone who cut 100% of corners on all previous work. We also know the consequences of leakage are serious.
I am on the fence. Here we have a pretty good-looking shower that functions fine, shows no signs of leakage, and isn't even likely to be used heavily (DD may want her own bathroom some day years from now). It ain't broke, and we have lots of other things that are broke that we need to work on. It's hard to take the air hammer to this shower and sign myself up for dozens of hours' work on the theory that it could be a problem some day when there is currently zero evidence it is a problem. The fact that it has a plastic tub instead of a mortar and tile tub means it's a lot less likely to fail due to leaky hairline cracks or waterproofing errors.
Somebody shove me over the edge. Replace the shower, or no?
