Sealants that don’t go black and mouldy

Sealants that don’t go black and mouldy

8:50 AM, 11th October 2012, About 12 years ago 3

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This article which looks at “Sealants that don’t go black and mouldy” is the third in a series of articles by bathroom water damage prevention specialist Steve Dalloway.

I know its wrong, but I love standing in the sealant isle in the leading Orange shed and watch people try to decide what to buy. They have no chance in getting it right sadly and it’s not their fault at all. It’s all about knowledge and experience of the products available.

After testing many sealants over the years there is only one we would use now and that’s a UK made product called “Forever White” or “Forever Clear” made by Everbuild.

Why ? Well this product has a chemical called Microban in it and it kills mould. Chefs use this Microban product on chopping boards to prevent mould growth and it really works.

I have personally used this for six years without any mould appearing on the sealant. Dirt yes, mould NO!

I don’t make this product, but I specify it in a number of the products my company manufactures and sells. More about that later.

If anyone has questions, I’d be happy to answer them or offer advice on best practice.

 

My next article is about Shower Curtains vs Over Bath Screens.

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Comments

Ian Simpson

21:08 PM, 11th October 2012, About 12 years ago

Hi Steve

Our bath has dropped away about 10mm from the bottom of the tiles since installation 4 years ago... I have re-mastic'ed four times now with little success. Is there a product to place in the gap behind, before re-mastic-ing (presumably with Forever White!!) such as a plastric beading, or an expanding foam perhaps? Your help welcome... Thanks. Ian

11:00 AM, 16th October 2012, About 12 years ago

Hi Ian, This is such a common problem we get calls about this literally every day. The best way to deal with this is to initially look at why the bath is moving. It’s amazing how many people just push the bath up to a wall and expect a £2.99 tube of sealant to hold a 20kg bath plus an 80kg person plus 10kg’s of water to a tiled wall. It simply won't cope with the stresses involved. If you couple that with a moving floor you have a nice recipe for water leaks. If your bath has moved by 10mm you really need a builder not a bath seal. OK let’s look at solving the problem. My approach is to do the job properly, so I never have to do it again. Doing a temp repair is simply storing up future problems and that’s fairly pointless in my book. 1. You need to make sure the bath is secured to the floor and the wall. Ideally the bath needs to come out completely and a nice solid (tanalised wood to prevent it rotting in the future) frame for the bath to sit on. 2. Then re-introduce the bath and screw it to the floor securely and use battens to hold the bath to the new frame in at least 3 places. So the bath is now stabilised and bath movement should be minimised. Remember plastic baths move more than metal ones. In my rentals I have standardised on simple quality metal ones from Kaldewei in Germany. Available here from good builders merchants and they withstand the rough and tumble of the rental market well. 3. Then use something like our BathSeal Ultra 10 seal to finish off the installation. It always pays immediately after fitting the seal to fill the bath ½ full of water to pre-stress the sealant joints. In this way when you get a person in the bath ( or two ) the seal isn’t over stressed and still copes well. One word of caution when considering a revamp…… “P shaped baths” or “Shower Baths”. In my book this type of bath looks great with curved screens in your own home, but in rentals they are a in my humble opinion a bit of a no, no. Why ? Well we have more calls about leaks from this type of bath than any other. They are so big and extremely flexible that they 100% need a frame to support them or they will leak and move away from the wall terribly. I hope that helps and if you have any questions just ask….. Steve……

14:09 PM, 16th October 2012, About 12 years ago

Steve,

Agree 100% about sorting out the support problem with why a bath is moving as much as 10mm, very few sealing systems will cope with that much movement. But often in real life there is movement of a few mm, as few baths are installed with a frame that works 100%.

As far as I can tell, your system has a fixed bead that does not allow for much movement, as the sealant as very thin. Other systems (eg some from http://www.sealux.com/ ) have a much wider sealant that is free to move enclosed with-in a plastic trim.

Ian (a different one!)

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