Shower/Tub Caulking Failure

[mcp6453]

The caulking at the top of our fiberglass shower/tub failed with age. By the time I noticed it, water damaged the edge of the drywall. I've cleaned out the old caulk, the damaged mud, and the damaged drywall. The drywall butts up to the lip of the shower.

What kind of mud do I use to repair the intersection of the shower and the drywall? Will any drywall mud do? I assume that I mud up to the horizontal surface of the shower and then caulk the intersection. Is that correct?

I can provide a picture of the problem if this description is too hard to follow.

[nestork]

Probably what's most important for you to do right now is to buy some Silicone-Be-Gone:

[image:

at any home center in your area and remove the residual silicone caulk _completely_. That way, you can be confident that the new silicone caulk you put down will stick well to both the fiberglass tub and the ceramic tiling. Even if you have a thin film of silicone caulk remaining on either the tub or the ceramic tiling, nothing sticks to cured silicone, not even new silicone caulk.

Remove the old silicone caulking by smearing Silicone-Be-Gone over it, allowing time for it to work, and then scraping the old softened silicone caulk off with a plastic scraper or steel razor (depending on what you're scraping it off of).

You can get plastic razor blades for scraping the silicone off of your fiberglass tub from Lee Valley:

[image:

Note that Silicone-Be-Gone is nothing more than gelled mineral spirits. It doesn;t dissolve silicone caulk, it simply makes it swell up and get soft so that it can be removed more easily by conventional means, such as scraping snd scrubbing.

Now, I have a hard time following your explanation of what you removed from the tiling. Your best bet is to register at:

'John Bridge Tile Forum, DIY Tile Advice, Tile How-to Information, Tile Your World'

and post some pictures there of what you're dealing with. John is a professional tiling contractor, and he has a DIY Q&A forum just like this one on his web site. Everyone you talk to there will be a tiling contractor and will give you good advice on how to repair what you have. You just need to post some pictures so that they can see exactly what you have. There are various picture posting web sites on the internet where you can post pictures, such as

'Photo and image hosting, free photo galleries, photo editing'

and provide a link for people to look at them.

The registration on John Bridge's site and at any picture posting sites is free.