Designing Kitchens and Bathrooms - Cracked Shower Tiles/Wet Drywall

I have a downstairs stand alone shower. There is no basement so this is sitting on concrete. The caulking/tiles on a corner have cracked and allowed water to seep into the wall. When my son leaned back against this wall, I ended up with a sizeable hole. I have peeled back and removed most of the soaked drywall, and am not using that shower to let it dry out.

My question is whether I can simply caulk the crack in the shower and replace the drywall, or whether this is going to have to be a more extensive job that I will have to hire out.

I've got pictures of what the damage looks like:

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a165/funkyfrogdesign/crackintiles.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a165/funkyfrogdesign/holeindrywall.jpg

Any advice appreciated.

Welcome to the Forums!

You have a few options here, none of which are that difficult.

Tear out the drywall to the centers of the nearest studs on both sides.

Replace all effected tile.

or

replace drywall

caulk corner, but, this would really be a temporary fix because you have to figure out what caused the crack in the first place.

Water behind tile/drywall is bad. If it were me, I would replace drywall and replace all the tile.

Thanks Mark! Do you mean to replace the drywall on the wall facing the bathroom where the hole is or do you mean to replace the wall board on the shower side as well (the wallboard/drywall directly backing the tiles)?

If I remove the tiles in the bathroom will that damage the drywall to the point where I will have to replace all of that wallboard anyways?

Also, how far in would I have to replace the tiles? The crack is really just along the corner where the tiles meet, so do I replace the tiles on either side of the crack?

Sorry for all the questions, I just want to get a good idea of how extensive this will be.

Miranda

Replace the dry wall with the hole in it.

You may end up replacing the drywall that the tiles are on when you pull the tiles off. If you can get the tile off without damaging the drywall to much, you should be ok. If you end up dinging it up or whatever, you could spread some joint compound over the effected areas and reapply tile.

Replace the tiles that are effected only if you can and if they still make them. Get a scoring wheel (found in the tile section of Lowes, etc) and make an X on each tile you want off, the tap it with a hammer to break it off. If you can just pull these tiles off, that's a bonus.