Home Improvement

Just to make sure I have the situation correct:

You filled a tub that you don’t normally use with water (for an emergency supply). A day or so later, the ceiling and wall directly below the tub are soaked. You then drained the water. 20 minutes later you still hear dripping so wonder if it was the water in the tub or something else.

It’s possible the supply line to the tub faucet cracked or otherwise started leaking when you filled the tub, but it seems much more likely that the water in the tub was the source.

The drain was plugged when the leak occurred, so the drain lines themselves are unlikely to be the issue.

This is a fiberglass/plastic tub, right? I think the tub itself is slowly leaking either from a hairline crack or from around the outside edge of the drain. This leak slowly soaked and pooled on the floor beneath the tub. Now you are hearing that pooled water drip down.

I’d do a careful crawl of the tub and see if you can find anything that appears to be a crack.

I’d keep listening to the drip rate in the wall and see if it’s subsiding. Hopefully it is. At that point, it’s figuring out what, if anything you can do for mitigation. My first thought is heat and airflow in the room with soaked walls/ceilings.

Try to see if the local tool rental place has a thermal cam available to rent, that can be really really helpful to find the source of the leak. Another thing would be to use a horoscope, you'll potentially have to drill one, or more, small holes to feed it through but they would be no bigger than a medium sized wall anchor.

What type of tub is it? Free standing or one with a panel on the side?

If one with a panel on the side you can remove them by cutting the silicone, which will enable you to see the drain pipe and the trap, and you can then inspect it for leaks (use a dry piece of paper towel to test if a leak continues after drying it initially)

If it's due to a leak from the water supply pipes you could try turning off your water at the source/stop tap, open up your all the taps in the house and drain your system (I wouldn't suggest doing this if you have a water storage tank). If the dripping stops after doing this, it's likely to be your water supply pipes, as opposed to the drain.

How wet is the ceiling? If the drywall has water damage you'll have to replace it anyway. Cut out a section and inspect the plumbing from underneath

I'm not an expert, so maybe someone can say if this might be a valid theory, but could it be that the weight of the water for a prolonged period has caused some pipe to come loose or something like that?

water flows down so look at points above the wet zone