You are ready to tackle some weekend projects including
caulking the bathtub or shower, but you first need to remove the old caulking. Sometimes this is easy, and sometimes it seems that you need a jackhammer to break up the old stuff. If luck is on your side, the old caulking will come out in a long strip, but don't bet on it.
Silicone caulking has the reputation of staying flexible and consequently tends to come out easier, but some of the home center brands, water based and latex caulking can get hard and need a little coaxing to come out. For the caulking that is as hard as rock, you can try to heat it up with a heat gun until it is pliable. Keep the gun moving from side-to-side until the area is uniformly warm and then you can cut it out.
Use a razorblade in a holder and push it into the caulking from both sides. In other words, you want to cut it from both surfaces that it is touching. When you encounter and area that you are unable to cut into, break out the heat gun and warm the area back up. Be careful not to scratch the surfaces.
Once you have cut out the bulk of the old caulking, you will likely be left with small remnants of caulking left on the surfaces. You can use denatured alcohol to wipe away soap scum and give the area a general cleaning before you re-caulk the shower or bathtub. Make sure the area is completely dry before you caulk a shower or bathtub.
You get done showering and there is water on the floor outside of the shower. How does this happen? Well, if you are the owner of a tub/shower enclosure (aka tub doors), it may be the result of a poor installation and lack of caulking.
Many people get tired of a shower curtain. You have a tub/shower combo and finally decide to install some sliding doors on the top of the tub. If these aren't installed correctly, you can get a leak, particularly if they haven't correctly done shower caulking.
The tracks to these types of doors are secured to the top of the tub with a couple of thick beads of caulking, which will keep water from running underneath the track and over the top of the tub. This bottom track is held in place by the side rails which sit in the bottom track and keep it place. This connection must be caulked or when water gets into the track it will leak out and over the tub. These side tracks are then screwed into the walls of the surround.
Once the enclosure is in place, the inside perimeter of the tub enclosure is caulked to keep water from leaking. You should have caulking under the bottom track, where the side tracks meet the bottom track, and along the inside perimeter of the enclosure.
Additionally, the tub doors should be adjusted so that they completely close against the side rails.
A nice finishing touch in a room is the paint. A big complaint that I hear from do-it-yourselfers is that when they are painting the wall one color and the baseboard a different color, the paint line between them is poor. You've probably seen them...due to the texture on the wall and the roughness of the baseboard, the paint is not very crisp.
What we want is a perfect line between the baseboard and the wall. This is easy to do with a thin bead of caulking and some tape. Use a tube of paintable caulking loaded in a caulking gun and squeeze a consistent bead of caulking along the top edge of the baseboard. The smaller the bead the better, as you don't want a big glob of caulking to paint. Take your finger and, starting in a corner, smooth the bead out along the entire perimeter of the room. If you lift your finger mid-baseboard, the paint will show it, so make one long continuous sweep. When you are done smoothing, let it completely dry.
Getting a perfect line between 2 colors of paint requires that you first paint one surface, let it dry, then paint the other. Which ever you choose to do first, paint beyond where you want the line to fall. For example, if you paint the baseboard first, paint a little of the wall too. Then, use blue painters tape, and in one continuous piece, cover the area you do not want to get the second color of paint on. The edge of the tape must fall on the caulking, so that both colors end up on the caulking. This is crucial because the smooth caulking will allow you to pull the tape and leave a perfect line.
There are two methods you can use for dispensing caulking when caulking a shower or tub. One is using a caulking gun and the other is a squeeze tube (think toothpaste). I am not a big fan of the squeeze tube as you have to squeeze the tube with your hands while trying to keep the nozzle tip in the right location. This gets hard to do especially near the end of the tube. Sure, you can get the caulk out of the tube, but it's going to be messy.
The caulking gun solves this. By having a trigger to squeeze there is much less fatigue on your hand. This leaves your other hand free to guide the tip of the caulking tube exactly where you want it. This makes for a quick, clean application.
A caulking tube made for a gun has a hard exterior, as opposed to a soft squeeze tube. To load the gun, pull the rod out of the rear of the gun, insert the tube, then push the rod up to meet the tube or just squeeze the trigger until snug.
For general shower caulking or tub caulking, cut the tip of the nozzle with a utility knife. You will see markings on the end of the tube for different diameters of the bead you will apply. Typically start out small, usually 1/8" or 3/16". This will give a nice bead of caulking. I find that less caulking is better. Before you start squeezing the trigger, you need to punch through the skin of the caulking to start the flow. A nail or piece of wire is good for this, although some caulking guns have a small rod attached just for this purpose.
You want to caulking to blend in to the surfaces not be so noticeable that it is unattractive. Here are some tips on caulking a shower.
There are times when you just can't get a tube of caulking into a small area to apply the caulking. Maybe trying to caulk behind a toilet or along the top of baseboards prior to painting.
A tube of caulking is about 12 inches long plus the plastic nozzle. The caulking gun is about the same length. When you place the tube of caulking into the gun, you have to pull a rod out of the and of it which only extends the size of the whole thing, making it tough to negotiate small areas. There are small areas around a toilet, in between bathroom vanities, etc. Even on exterior weatherization projects, you will find areas that just aren't accommodating to caulking guns. I dislike using caulking in squeeze tubes that you apply by squeezing with your hand (like squeezing toothpaste). These tubes hold less that a standard tube you load into a gun, but I don't like them because you don't have the level of control you have with a gun. So you can modify the tube to fit your needs.
If I have to apply caulking into an area that isn't large enough to accommodate a gun, I modify the tube to fit my needs. I will get a small hollow hose of whatever diameter needed, and secure it to the end of the tube of caulking. You can tape it with duct tape, and fish the empty hose wherever you need it to go. You can buy a variety of clear vinyl hoses cut to length at most home centers.
The only caveat is to use a full tube of caulking when you start. Depending on how large and long the empty hose you are using is, you may have to fill it with a substantial amount of caulking before it starts coming out of the end and to the area you need it. Of course, in a pinch you could remove the hose from the now-empty caulking tube and stick it onto a full tube of caulking. Caulking a shower is a very common job for any Las Vegas handyman.