Shower Leak

[RyanJ]

Hi all,

This is my first post in the forum. I recently purchased a house and this my first real maintenance issue. My house has one bathroom, which is on the first floor with an unfinished basement below. Each time I take a shower (approximately 10 minutes), there is a drip that occurs onto the basement floor that results is a small puddle of water. I have a clear view of the drain and it is not leaking. I can also see the pipe that goes up from the faucet to the shower head and it does not seem to be leaking. I have caulked the bathroom using a silicon caulk.

I have done a couple other troubleshooting procedures but have not been able to identify an the issue yet. Below is a summary of things that I have done.

1. Run only the bathtub for about 10 minutes- No Leak
2. Run Shower for 10 minutes- Leak
3. Hook up a handheld showerhead to the faucet pipe using a hose and mount the handheld unit to the wall then run the water for about 10 minutes- Leak
4. Took the handheld shower unit attached to faucet pipe and sprayed the water outside a window that is along the wall of the tub- Leak

I am thinking that I might have a leak between my sink, toilet, and bathtub, but I don't understand why I would only see the leak when I use the shower and not the tub faucet. Anything else I should consider doing? The bathroom wall is tiled and on the opposite wall is a kitchen cabinet.

Thanks!!

[pushkins]

Lets see if I got all this right
The tub is fiberglass or metal and the walls around it are tiled, it doesn't leak when you fill the tub, only leaks when you use the shower head, you can see up inside the wall that there are no leaks in the line going from the valve up to the shower head and you re caulked the transition between wall and tub ......did I get all that correct ? ( I don't understand the water out the window part)
Usually when you eliminate the drain and shower head lines the answer for a leak is poor caulking, but this wouldn't be the case if the spray of water was directly into the tun (like when no one is in the shower), when someone is in the shower you have splash water running down the wall and when there is a poor caulking issue that is often the source of a small leak.
You are not able to detect at what end the drip is coming from, like is it coming from right under the faucet area or part way along the side for example ?

[RyanJ]

Yes you understood the situation correctly. I have a fiberglass tub. The reason, I sprayed water out of the window was to try to eliminated bad caulking as the issue. If no water was hitting the caulk, it couldn't be the issue.

The drip in my basement coincides with the front edge of the tub (side where you enter). I forgot to mention that I did instal guards on the back and front to prevent water from dripping down the edge of the tub and onto the floor.