ᐅ Floor has settled – Shower

Hello everyone,

We recently purchased a prefabricated house built in 2006. Since we are not experts and have never really dealt with houses before, we have a few questions.

We have a small bathroom with a shower on the ground floor. The floor throughout the entire ground floor has settled, in some places quite significantly. Could it be a problem if the floor has settled in the area around the shower, for example, causing pipes or connections to no longer be watertight? I would assume that this is taken into account during construction and that there is a system in place to prevent such issues. Does anyone have experience with this?

We started thinking about this because when walking on the tiles in the bathroom, you can hear the shower “creaking,” as if something is under tension.

Thanks in advance for your answers.

The creaking might come from a substructure; it is a siphon that is embedded in a panel and placed directly on the raw floor, which is then tiled over.

However, there should be no creaking or cracking; otherwise, the waterproofing would be compromised.

What is beneath the bathroom?

Are the joints still intact?

There is nothing below the bathroom; it is located on the ground floor, and we do not have a basement.
The silicone seals still look very good.

Dennis1234321 schrieb:
The entire ground floor has settled, in some areas quite significantly.

That ideally shouldn’t happen, at least not to that extent. A settlement of 1-5 mm (0.04-0.2 inches) might occur, which could require renewing the silicone around base tiles, for example, but visible sinking should not happen if the screed and insulation were properly installed. It’s possible that insufficient compressive strength insulation was used. However, at this point it’s too late to change that. As long as there are no major cracks or damages, it’s not too serious.

Dennis1234321 schrieb:
Could it be a problem if the floor in the shower area has settled, for example causing any pipes or connections to leak?

The shower tray is usually installed on feet or a polystyrene support base directly on the unfinished floor. The drainage pipe runs on, through, or below the slab, so it is not directly affected by the screed. Damage caused by screed settlement is unlikely.

Dennis1234321 schrieb:
Because when you walk over the tiles in the bathroom you can hear the shower “creaking” as if something is under tension.

This is caused by the floating screed, which probably settles unevenly and therefore moves slightly. The shower tray, however, is fixed in place, so the edge of the tiles around the tray rubs or presses against it. It becomes more critical if the shower tray itself wobbles when you stand in it.

Aren't these all questions that should be answered before making a purchase...?

5mm (0.2 inches) would be ideal, but in the worst spots it’s easily 10mm (0.4 inches). However, I don’t think it’s too problematic. We are currently redoing the silicone joints, some of them are really big gaps now. Well.

Fortunately, the shower tray itself does not wobble.

Thank you very much for your answers!

Of course, normally you would clarify this beforehand, but at the beginning, many things simply don’t stand out yet. If we could have moved in on a trial basis for a week, it might look different.

Best regards

Dennis