Hi, our house is about 1 year old and recently I have been noticing water climbing up the edge of the door in our bathroom. We have an open shower and the door to the toilet basically runs next to the opening to the shower so I'm sure there is some water getting under the door edging. I have tried running some silicon underneath the door however this doesn't seem to have worked. I have attached a photo (as I'm sure my description of the problem is a bit confusing) Any help would be great.
[ img ]

HI lukeR, I hope you don't mind but I've edited your post to add your photo image into the thread. People tend to prefer to look here rather than go to links themselves. Good luck with finding a solution to your problem.

G'Day Mate,

I'm no expert in the game, but I'm "pretty sure" of a couple of things.

If you've built recently, then chances are, your builder has used ordinary MDF skirting and achitraves, and its seems from the pic, that's what swelling.

As far as i know, you can get treated MDF, for use in wet areas, but some builders just don't go the extra mile and suply the right stuff.

The area that's swollen will need to be either replaced, or sanded back and re-painted. Applying silicon at the base won't fix the damage that's already there. If fact, applying silicon may adversely the timber, as it's can't breath and dry out.

Others may be able to confirm or reject what i've said.

Did you build the house ? can you claim on warranty ?

There seems to be about a 10mm gap from the waterproofing angle to the arc. If you take the bottom row of tiles out of a shower behind them is soaking. The angle would be stopping the water from the floor but the water behind the tiles can go over the top.
Maybe just a case of taking the arc off, running silicone down the back edge of the tiles before fitting new arc. Also fill with silicone the cut out in the tile at the bottom before fitting the new arc.

Edit to say, make sure they use only pine when fixing it.

I think that silicon is just a temporary solution till it get fully fixed

So what more would you do?
Maybe a poly sealant rather than silicone.

Get the builder back in to fix it. . . 7 years warranty.

We had a big old leak and they came and fixed it. . . Funnily enough, we have our shower right next to the door jamb too, the water was getting under the grout, travelling along the top of the waterproofing and straight out through the door hole, under the carpet. . . Where it sat, making mould until we noticed.

But that's beside the point. . . Surely they wouldn't use mdf skirtings in a bathroom?

I got the impression from your first post you were able to offer a solution on how to fix the problem. Not just get the builder back. I thought that was pretty obvious.

This is not a huge leak, just a small amount of water tracking behind the tiles. sealant along the tile edge would more than fix the problem.

And surely yes, they have used MDF achitrave.

If it is an MDF panel then the only option is to replace it. Once MDF is affected by water it has had it. I would replace it with solid timber.

Do you know for sure that it is "tracking behind the tiles"? If it is when you pull the panel off it might give you some ideas as to where its getting in.

If the panel is MDF then water might not be "tracking behind the tiles" Paint alone isnt enough to keep MDF from swelling that close to a water sorce!

So obvious that no-one else mentioned it mgilla. . . their house is only one year old, it's still the builder's problem. Get the builder to fix it.