The hole in the shower subfloor is gone!
My construction professional (I haven't asked him if he wants to be in the blog, yet) fixed the water leak, re-routed the water lines and dug two, 5 gallon buckets full of mud out of the hole and filled it in with new concrete. It looks great! It seems that the folks that moved the drain from the left position to the middle position, for the tub to shower conversion 25 years ago, didn't finish the job. They busted out the concrete to move the drain over and didn't repair the hole that they made. Throw in a leak, and you've got a mud hole. We don't have any idea how long the water had been leaking, It could have been years.
We needed a vent fan installed in the bathroom to get rid of the humidity in there. It seems that back in 1976, when the house was built, no-one thought about putting in a vent of any kind. And it was fine until the four of us took lots of showers everyday and the humidity didn't have any way to get out. This led to some mildew problems and some of the sheetrock peeling, So, we needed a vent fan and I wanted a heater, too.
Our construction professional recommended this Utilitech vent/heater combo. It's quiet and has a light, too. He put in a neat little control panel to operate it and our vanity light. It fits in the space of a double switch, but has 3 small toggle switches and a standard switch.
After installing the vent heater combo he added insulation to the ceiling and then sealed the ceiling with new sheetrock over the vanity and the shower space. I took some time out of my busy schedule to get a drywall lesson. I've done some little repairs around the house over the years, like out in the garage when someone pulled up too far, but I didn't do a very good job. I'm anxious to try out my new skills, but I think I'll leave the bathroom to the professional because he might not be so anxious for me to help!
Some of you might be wondering why we only have one sink in the master bathroom. I used to wonder that myself. Maybe the builders decided to cut corners by leaving out the vent system and the second sink. The truth is, I don't know. But it works for us. We aren't in the bathroom at the same time. I don't want to watch anybody brush their teeth, ever. Even over at another sink!