How to choose the best sealant on the market?
Constant humidity, warm air, condensate on pipes is an excellent breeding medium for mold, which not only spoils the appearance of walls, plumbing, giving them a sloppy appearance, but also significantly damaging our health, causing allergies, bronchitis and other diseases of the respiratory system. Especially hard in this atmosphere is asthmatics, in which the mold provokes severe coughing attacks. Doing repairs in the bathroom, do not wait for the first signs of black points. It is necessary to tighten the bath around the perimeter in good time. Otherwise, the fungus may appear not only in the fissures, but also under the bathroom on the walls, where the water flows while swimming through the cracks between the wall and the bath.
All seams and crevices must be carefully filled with sealant, but how to choose the best one available for sale. On sale you can find acrylic and silicone sealants for the bathroom. Which one is better, let's try to analyze.
Types of sealants for the bathroom
Silicone sealant is reliable and durable and is ideal for wet rooms. Although silicone can be of different colors, but the most popular are the transparent and white. Silicone sealants are acid and neutral. The first are used for wood, plastic, ceramics. Neutral sealed seams in the bathroom or used to repair plumbing.
The best silicone sealant is one that contains the least amount of impurities. Such compositions have a small shrinkage of about 3% and reliably hold together all the errors in the finish. Silicone with a lot of impurities silicone loses its characteristics, and it will not perform its role well. Allowed 10% of impurities from the total weight of the composition. An exemplary valid composition might look like this:
- extenders;
- organic solvents;
- fillers;
- fungicide is an antifungal agent.
It is also necessary to look at the manufacturer. Reliable large companies will not hit the dirt in the face and spoil their reputation with poor-quality products. Of the most well-known are Ceresit and CIKI FIX.
Acrylic sealant is just as good and also suitable for the treatment of seams in the bathroom. Choose a waterproof sealant that can withstand high humidity and temperature changes. You can use both kinds of sealants at once. Moreover, acrylic is more suitable for large cracks, and fine cracks are perfectly covered with silicone. But in comparison with silicone, acrylic loses in longevity, so in time the old one will have to be removed and the new one will be applied.
However, if the ventilation system is disturbed in the bathroom, even super-resistant silicone will not save from the appearance of the fungus. If this trouble has happened again, then you need to replace the silicone and fill the slots with a sanitary antifungal silicone.
This is not difficult at all. Here are the main stages of work:
- Stock up with acetone or alcohol, rags, paint tape, spatula and special gun.
- Next, prepare the surface for processing - clean and degrease, for which we will use acetone or alcohol.
- With a masking tape, glue the surfaces adjacent to the slit so that the sealant line is flat afterwards.
- After complete drying of the surface, squeeze out the sealant from the tube with a gentle pressure. And, the tip of the tube must be cut along the oblique, so the silicone will be easier to exit. Do not let the tube stay long without the cap, so that it does not dry up.
- If the sealant did not come out evenly, then the excess should be removed with a spatula.
- At the final stage, remove all traces of silicone or acrylic on the bathroom or walls with a solvent.
