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A plumber has just repaired a leak in my shower tap pipes. To do this he had to smash out tiles from the shower wall, and now I am left with a big hole to repair:

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I could re-tile this hole but if I need to access the pipes again then its such a pain to go through this process again. So I was wondering if there are any watertight panel-type products which can cover the pipes and taps but can be easily removed for access?

I have seen access panels in drywalls on the other side of a shower wall, but my shower is up against the edge of the house (indoors) so I guess that is not an option. I thought about custom making a metal or plastic panel with quarter-turn latches to hold it tightly against the wall but I'm worried that it might not seal properly.

mulllhausen
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A tile guy I've been working with gave me a great pro tip recently: do all the plumbing in a shower in a vertical straight line, and use a single vertical line of accent tiles to cover them up, going floor-to-ceiling. This way, if you ever need to bust up tiles and access the pipes behind them, you only have to re-do that single line of tiles, not the whole shower.

iLikeDirt
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Note that if you are retiling you will have to do that whole wall. There is no way to retile just that section.

Your plate idea will work. It will need to have a rubber/felt backing around the perimeter of the backing. Then just silicone around it.

I doubt it will look good but it depends on what you want.

Realistically if you did a good job of installing the new valve, there should be no issues in the future. So just take down that section and retile it. It wouldn't take more than 4-5 hours to put up new backer, take out door, and retile. It might take that long to find a custom plate.

The other option is just go with a fiberglass panel on that wall. You can take out the panel if there are plumbing issues in the future.

DMoore
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