Caulking and Grouting

Have ready

Leave the shower dry for at least a day before the visit, because we cannot judge what we are cutting out if the joint is wet. Take down the shower curtain, the bottles, and the bathmat. We check three things before cutting anything: whether the wall or the floor tile is hollow by tapping it, whether the joint we are replacing is a change of plane or a flat field joint, and where the water is actually coming from behind the finish. A soft spot changes the job.

• Cut out failed caulk
• Regrout cracks
• Color-matched sanded or unsanded grout
• Wet-area silicone

The visit

Shower joints that move — the curb, the corners, the tub rim — get silicone after the old grout or caulk is cut out to the substrate. Floor grout that cracked because the room moved gets raked out and replaced only after we know the tile is still bonded.

The leak we get called for is a tub that was grouted hard to the tile. That joint cracks, water runs behind the surround, and the ceiling below stains. Caulk is the right material there. More grout is how the stain comes back.

Permit

Cutting out and replacing caulk or grout is a maintenance finish and normally requires no permit in New Jersey. It becomes a permitted scope when the repair goes past the finish, such as opening a shower wall to replace a wet substrate or reworking a drain or a valve. If the inspection of the joint shows the board behind it is soft, we stop and talk to you about the larger repair before we put new caulk over a wet wall.

On the Shore

This is a salt-air and humidity problem more than a cleaning problem. Shore bathrooms hold moisture, so a shower joint that is grouted where it should be caulked cracks in the first heating season and lets water behind the tile. Mildew grows into a neutral-cure sealant that was applied over a damp joint. We cut back to dry substrate, let it dry, and use a product rated for wet areas rather than a painter's caulk that will fail in a season.

When we leave

Once the joints are tooled, we run the shower and the tub and watch the new sealant lines for beading water where they should is the goal, but the visible test is simple: we run water, look for weeping at the tub rim and the shower base, and check the ceiling below if there is one. Then the joint needs to cure. A standard sealant skins overnight and needs longer before the shower is used, so we write the wait time on a note and leave it with you.

Built with

The choice of grout matters as much as the caulk. Unsanded grout goes in narrow joints and around glass, sanded grout in wider floor joints. At every change of plane, meaning the corners, the curb, the tub rim, and the transition at the floor, we use a flexible sealant rather than grout. We cut the old material out with a blade or a grout saw to the substrate, clean it, and let it dry before anything goes back in.