1/2 inch silicone bead too big?

[bruce_phipps]

I've recently tiled my bathroom and left a 1/2 inch gap between the tiles and the bath. This seems a bit wide to seal with a bead of silicon. The install notes that came with the bath recommend a 1/4 inch gap max.. And filling the bath with water will increase the gap even more. What are the best options for sealing tround the bath?

• Cut a big bead width on the tube and go for it.

• Apply the silicone in several layers, over a few days.

• Use some sort of sealing strip.

• Pack or fill the cavity (what with?) to reduce the gap.

Advice welcomed.

Thanks Mike

[Ian_m]

1. Retile starting from bath up (use wood shims or match sticks to space tiles off bath) like most people do.
2. Put shims under bath legs to raise a bit so reduce gap.

Any gap bigger than 1/4 will work its way open pretty quickly as well as looking crap.

[diy-newby]

If the instructions said leave a 1/4 inch gap MAX, why did you leave 1/2 inch gap?

[bruce_phipps]

Too late for that. I would have to take down and redo nearly three walls. When I was laying the tiles, I initially tried using tile spacers to space the tiles off the bath. But they couldn't support the weight of the tiles. So I ended up shoving part tiles underneath to give a solid flat base. Unfortunately, when I removed the part tiles, the gap was bigger than I anticipated.

The bath is screwed to the wall, using 2 brackets. And the brackets have been tiled over. Shifting the bath up would probably cause this to move. What do you think?

Looks like a sealing strip is needed. But try to fill the void first with silicone, or tile adhesive, or something(!)

Thanks Mike

[Stuart B]

I know it is cold comfort now but what you should have done was put the spacers on the bath then a loose tile then ( using another spacer above the loose tile ) securely fitted a wooden batten to a level line all round ,no more than 1 tile plus 1 spacer at any point .You should then have tiled from the batten upwards using spacers and when all the tiles were laid and the cement dried gone back ,siliconed between wall and bath then fitted the bottom row of tiles then siliconed the gap with the bath full of water Stuart

[sm_jamieson]

Sealing strips stuck on top of the tiles rarely work for long. I would cut the L brackets off (if you can get at them through the

1/2" gap), remove the bath and find another way to fix it (a batten all round the edge for starters). I have in the past used a variety of devious methods of fixing the long edge of the bath (that you can't get to), usually involving a mirror and long socket extension !. Also, I believe there are some ingenious brackets you can get for this. Fit the bath higher up, it will be worth it in the long run. Simon.

[John]

Wot he said, ALWAYS put the row of tiles immediately above the bath on LAST. When I do this I use insulating tape (which is stretchy) to pull the bottom tiles onto the spacers and the fixed / dried tiles. I know it is too late now but it works for me! Siliconing before the last row is laid is also a VERY good idea, that way if your seal on the bath rim fails you do not get a leak down between the bath and wall.

John

[Ian_m]

In my experience the stick on outside L shaped sealing strips don't last that long, eventually coming away from the tiles. My last house had these half hanging off when I moved in, so I re-siliconed but they soon came away again.

Had better success with the L shaped sealing strips that go behind the bottom tile. Made a scraper tool out of bent screw driver (bent at red heat) to scrape adhesive out from behind the bottom row of tiles. You can then get silicone between the L and bath and tile and L. This bodge did not fail and was still water tight when the bathroom was refurbished.

Oh by the way if you jack the bath up do not use plasterboard !! My mate found out to his cost after a minor bathroom flood, got in bath and one end sunk away, the plasterboard shim having got wet and crumbled at one end of the bath....nice.

[bruce_phipps]

Thanks, Stu. Looks like I have some thinking to do...

[Ed Sirett]

AISI you have a couple of options.

1) If the style permits you could use ceramic quadrant bead tiles (these only work with plain white tiles of the right size and a generally "inter- war" style). 2) Using a diamond blade tile cutter cut very thing tile strips.

[breeze34]

a practised mastic applier can do a 12 mm joint no problem you may need to practice apparently you can buy a tool that gives a good finish on the web

i woul;d roll a sheet of newspaper into a tube the right size and push that into the gap you may need more than 1 tube

and you should clean every thing including your hands before you start

1/2in gap big deal

breeze

[beamer]

Seconded. I had something similiar a while ago. Rather than paper I managed to wedge some *very* slim offcuts of tile in the gap and got a neat and tidy seal. My logic was that tile offcuts wouldn't change their volume over time and cause problems later.

I'm sure someone will correct me here, but I also applied the seal when the bath was full of water to allow for any movement.

[Martin Pentreath]

Hi Mike,

I haven't fully got my head around your problem, but this may help:

the group archives for opinions on it.

Cheers!

Martin

[bruce_phipps]

Sounds like it's worth a try. Rather than use paper to fill the void, I was thinking of using draught-proofing strip or similar. Then silicone over the top. Using a quadrant bead tile is also worth investigating.

Thanks Mike I