How much should I be paying for a decent tube of silicone to seal around basin and bath? Screwfix have tubes ranging in price from 2 pounds to over 8 pounds. At the top end of this price range are you paying for the "label"? What brand do people in the trade use?
Thanks Mike
You get what you pay for. For basin / bath you want one with anti-mould properties.
My experience as a reasonably new house owner leads me to believe that the trade use the cheapest. They don't care if it goes mouldy in a year and crumbles in two. I have had to spend days digging out poor quality failing silicone. So how would you value your time? - how much extra would you be prepared to pay to avoid digging out and redoing the job in a couple of years?
There seems to be two kinds of silicone - that which produces an acetic acid smell and that which is water based. But I don't know which is best.
Davy
I recently had to rainproof the edges of a lean-to and discovered that Poundland sold tubes of various sealants. I got half a dozen tubes of black gutter sealant for less than the price of one tube at B&Q and it's brilliant stuff - went on easily, no stringing, set up a treat, stuck like wotsit to a doodah.
Don't know if they had anything suitable for your job but it's worth a look.
Si
You get what you pay for. Early failure means having to re-do the job plus the cost of a silicone remover product to it. It's a false economy to buy unknown cheap rubbish.
Dow Corning have a wide variety of products all with detailed specifications on their suitability. IME, they exceed the claimed specs and lifetimes.
wrote
As others have said (or implied) you get what you pay for here possibly more than most places. Dow Corning 785 has its followers on this group and I am one of them. Re-furbished bathroom in 2004, sealer shows no signs of deterioration or discolouring let alone mould. This is at the upper end of your price range - upto £7 if memory serves! Worth ringing round though, ISTR getting the stuff for £3 not that long ago - may have been mislabelled!!! Check use by date before purchase - shelf life about a year.
However, to avoid mould you should also have good heating and ventilation, particularly in this weather.
Phil
In article , Andy Hall writes
Excellent products they may be but IME Dow Corning don't give a damn for the little man and make it very difficult for the average Joe to get a sniff of their detailed specifications. When I was looking for detailed info on Dow Corning Plumba Thread there was absolutely nothing immediately available in the world on the web, I eventually got the info over the phone from the exceptionally helpful UK rep. He admitted that the corporate machine was more interested in servicing industry than small business so I'd rather spend my money elsewhere.
Actually not an easy call. The top end products are usually ok, but the screwfix own brand one is also pretty good and out performs many of the mid price ones.
I've taken to using the Screwfix No Nonsense range - clear & white silicone, sanitary silicone, solvent free & normal grab adhesive, gutter sealant, glass cleaner. They all seem fine to me. The grab adhesives in particular seem very good and the glass cleaner is outstandingly good.
I find the same silicone is fine in the bathrooms but goes mouldy in the kitchen. The temperature and ventilation are not a problem IMHO.
Explain that!
M.
Mould has the ability to metabolise acetate, and can thrive quite happily on acetate as its sole source of food. Some silicones produce acetic acid as they cure which gets trapped within the sealant, and gives the mould all it needs in the way of energy.
Warm damp kitchen provides the right environment for growth, your bathroom may be too cold (possibly).
Difficult to make any definitive statement, but using a neutral cure sealant can help to avoid problems.
But, as with most things, its not a linear, nor monotonic, relationship. Increasing price doesn't mean higher quality at all data points.
MBQ
The point was that the cost is not simply the purchase price of the item, but the cost of replacing it and the additional time and materials for doing so.
For that reason, I buy known good brands and products such as Dow Corning where performance is good, known and predictable.
Discussing a £6 price difference is academic when all is taken into account.
It's implicit that any fair comparison will take those factors into account. Once thay are accounted for, the point is that paying more does not neccesarily equate to higher quality.
Not neccessarily.
MBQ
It's very difficult to make an all factors considered comparison between a known specification quality product and some unknown "supergunk"
For example, if I want to know the specifications and application information for Dow Corning 785, I can download a detailed data sheet from their web site. If need be, I can call them and speak to a technical person on the usability of the product
Given that situation, how can one make a proper comparison? The answer is that it isn't possible; so it becomes a matter of either hoping that the cheap product will meet some requirement that isn't stated on the label or simply paying very slightly more something known to work properly because the manufacturer has taken the trouble to test and to specify it.
Yes. Necessarily.
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