Bath Sealing Strip - TilersForums.com

[Minnie]

Hello all

Another question.

I have a gap between back section of bath on left hand side that's wide enough for a tile to fall down. It was recommended I get one of those sealing strips to cover the gap. However, I'm not sure of the order to do things and whether there's an alternative to using this strip as it's only for a couple of feet and therefore looks a bit odd overlapping only one section of bath.

Do I stick attempt to stick it on the walls along with tiles whilst the bath has water in it or out?

Do I attempt to stick it to the wall on its own and then tile over it the next day?

Whichever I do, am I supposed to leave a spacer's width at the bottom of the tile bearing in mind the bath will now be sealed or tile so the tile is sitting on the bath seal?

Something else?

Here's a picture of the seal and a picture of me sliding a bit of tile down the gap. I'm wondering if that gap is small enough that with adhesive, the tile may sit proud of the bath, but then what if there's movement, will it slide down the wall? Or would cutting the top of my silicone sealant all the way to the bottom so there's a very wide strip of sealant coming up be sufficient to do the job.

'tis all very confuddling

 

[Minnie]

How it used to be - little slivers of tiles at the bottom

 

[Deleted member 9966]

Minnie

How wide is that gap at it's widest point? 3mm? 4mm? wider?

When I recently refitted my bath back into my bathroom, I found out the walls were not perfectly square or straight to the bath. So I ran a bead of silicone sealant between the bath and the walls in the areas around the bath where the width of the gap might cause problems. Thankfully my tiles were about 3mm in thickness, and adhesive was at least 3mm deep also, so the tiles sat about 6mm out from the wall.

But having that bead of silicone between the bath and the wall helped to rest the tile on. After the tiling and grouting was done, the tiles were then sealed to the bath with more silicone.

basically what I'm saying is, if the gap isn't too wide, could you get away using a silicone sealant to fill the gap?

GRR

 

[Gazzer]

It looks like you will get away without that bath seal....pain in the backside anyway. With adhesive and tile you should be ok but i would seal with silicone before and after. You will need to pack the larger part of the gap before sealing with something like foam strips so that the silicone does not fall through. You dont have to be too neat with the 1st silicone as you wont see it when tiled.

 

[macten]

Do as Liz says. Should silicone the bath to wall anyway. That gap looks fine to tile without sealant strip.

Here's one Idid with unsquare walls:

 

[Minnie]

Minnie

How wide is that gap at it's widest point? 3mm? 4mm? wider?

About 10mm.

When I recently refitted my bath back into my bathroom, I found out the walls were not perfectly square or straight to the bath. So I ran a bead of silicone sealant between the bath and the walls in the areas around the bath where the width of the gap might cause problems. Thankfully my tiles were about 3mm in thickness, and adhesive was at least 3mm deep also, so the tiles sat about 6mm out from the wall.

But having that bead of silicone between the bath and the wall helped to rest the tile on. After the tiling and grouting was done, the tiles were then sealed to the bath with more silicone.

basically what I'm saying is, if the gap isn't too wide, could you get away using a silicone sealant to fill the gap?

GRR

That's sort of what I was asking, if I could get away with it as I'm not sure how big a gap is workable. I did try running a strip of sealant down but it fell down the gap. Obviously there wasn't a big chunk taken off the nozzle as I was just using it for the windows and didn't want to cut the nozzle to see if it would fit as I had further work to do on the windows and didn't want to end up with big fat blobs. Does that make sense? :lol:

 

[Minnie]

Do as Liz says. Should silicone the bath to wall anyway. That gap looks fine to tile without sealant strip.

Here's one Idid with unsquare walls:

Oh, your gap looks much bigger than mine. :lol:

Right, I'm going to cut a bigger chunk off the nozzle and try to seal it then as I don't like that strip.

 

[Deleted member 9966]

Do as Liz says. Should silicone the bath to wall anyway. That gap looks fine to tile without sealant strip.

Here's one Idid with unsquare walls:

Nick what did you put under the silicone to support it whilst it was setting? Anything?

 

[Minnie]

Nick what did you put under the silicone to support it whilst it was setting? Anything?

oh, that's a point. Or is it expanding stuff that sort of settles itself without falling down the edge?

Obviously I have no idea how to use the sealant :lol:

I'm guessing as well that I'll not be able to tile that wall until the sealant is dry. (Needs to take a look to see how long that'll take)

 

[Deleted member 9966]

Minnie

As Sir Ramic says, if you can fill the gap with something first to stop the silicone falling down the gap, and then silicone over, then you should be ok.

I usually leave around 24 hours for silicone to dry.