Non shrinking filler

Jan 11, 2011 11 Replies
C

Hi,



Several years back, I sanded the floorboards in a downstairs room and varnished the floor.



In order to fill the small gap under the skirting and block out the freezing winter drafts, I ran in a line of clear silicone under the skirting, which was not visible and sealed the drafts pretty well.



The silicone has shrunk over time and there are really bad drafts coming into the room once more.



In an Ideal world, I'd remove all skirting and squirt some expanding foam between floorboards and walls, but I'd rather avoid all the work involved.



Can anyone recommend a good suitable filler for this task, which won't shrink over time ?



Thanks



Chris


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T

Silcone doesn't shrink, but floorboards can.

use a flexible caulk like decorators caulk. But it wont allow that much movement.. You need a sliding seal like a weatherproofing strip.

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S

Or peel back the carpet, flatten the pipe on a foam-can and squeeze foam into the slot.

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T

I am having trouble understanding how really bad drafts can be coming from a gap between skirting and floor but not up from under the floor between the boards.

Tim w

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T

T & G?

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C

The floorboards are tongue and groove. The floorboards are not sealed against the brick behind the skirting board. When I originally put the skirting on, I just used silicone. Obviously a mistake. When I recently change the skirting in a different room, I sealed the perimeter of the floorboards with expanding foam, before putting on the skirting. This seems like best practice.

I think that someone has made a valid comment in stating that "silicone doesn't shrink, but wood does". I bet this is what's happened here. as the skirting was fresh timber, when I put it on, so there's probably been a lot of shrinkage over the years.

Thanks

Chris

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J

My 18th Century oak floor boards have shrunk by about 2ml on each side since I re-laid them and had central heating fitted!

Jonathan

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T

two milli-litres? how did you measure that?

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S

Approaching the Planck length.

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P

Why not put quadrant beading along the join? - with a generous bead of silicone behind it first.

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