Cladseal Shower Trim - silicone seal failure

[frank999]

Hi,

I have fitted a number of bathrooms using PVC Shower Panels, and suspect the Silicon seal between the panels bottom trim and the bath lip has failed.

Where the panel meets the bath lip I have used Cladseal Shower Trim:~

Cladseal Shower Trim - Cladding Plus

claddingplus.co.uk

I am proposing to cut through the existing silicon seal between the trim and bath, and remove the bath, then hopefully prize out the Silicone, clean the bath lip, and refit with fresh Silicone.

I have a concern that I will not be able to strip out all the Silicone in the Cladseal Strip, nor fill it with fresh silicone, as the trims cavity for filling will be facing down, and the Silicone may simply droop and drop out before I get chance to re position and raise the bath into position. I've never used Silicone 'upside down' - so to speak.

I will assume my builders fitted the panels and trim correctly, but the bath dropping is the cause - the bath supports sit on 18mm ply spreaders, which sit on top of a 20mm rubber sound matt (to meet Part E), which has compressed slightly over the 3/4 years since this was installed.
To try remediate the dropping, larger ply pads have been put in place, and either a wall baton or some form of strutt between bath lip and floor will be provided, to keep the Bath Lip tight to the Cladseal Strips Silicone bead.

Cladseal Trim is supposed to deal with some movement though:

I wonder if anyone has had to deal with this or a similar problem, and could it be resolved in the manner I describe, or was a different approach taken.

Here are the Panels

Shower Panels | Decorative Waterproof Panels | Panel Company

Upgrade your bathroom aesthetics with our range of waterproof shower panels, designed to elevate your bathroom interior with ease. Enjoy free delivery over £49.

www.panelcompany.co.uk

and
corner profiles:
https://www.panelcompany.co.uk/collections/trim-accessories/products/internal-corner (both from the Panel Company

 

[Wayners]

When I fitted a bath I screwed wood batten to wall for bath to sit on on the 3 sides.
I also fitted batten to wall coming up from floor and screwed and CT1 to wall.
Bath never moved.
Same with shower trays. I seen a few where you place one foot in diagonal corners and tray rocked.
This movement will cause any sealing strip to fail.
If you can get under bath fix some T legs around the edges off the floor to stop movement.
Run silicone around using a shapeng tool to get a thick straight angled silicone bead.


As for your question.
Those plastic trim sealing strips are designed to fix a problem that shouldn't happen. I'm not a fan

 

[Madrab]

Must agree - trim and fancy seals are just not needed, never have been never should be. They are just failure points and dirt/mould traps IMO.

With a bath, all the wall contact points should have a baton on it. Especially at the outside corners. Plenty of silicone along the top of the baton and on the bath edge with absolutely no gaps, more so at the wet areas around the shower, pay careful attention to the corners. Lift the bath edge up onto the baton and then push the bath onto the wall, ensure the whole gap is filled and no air bubble all the way along the contact points, smooth off and secure the bath feet and then fill bath with water and leave for 24hrs. That in essences provides 2 main seal points, on the baton and along the wall edge.

Then the wall covering is fitted down to the bath edge and its sealed again. With it being sealed in 3 places like that it shouldn't ever leak.

 

[frank999]

As for your question.
Those plastic trim sealing strips are designed to fix a problem that shouldn't happen. I'm not a fan

Do you mean - where additional sealing strips from behind the finishes (ie panels in my case) are not used behind trims ??

I definately think the Part E Sound Matt has exasperated the problem, combined without anything to stop movement, such as T Legs or batons, as you suggest.

Next time I will need to incorporate a design that will allow for more movement - caused by the bath (or shower tray where there is one, sitting ontop of a Rubber and Foam Matt, and not rely on such trims, where the silicone seal is likely to break, does such a product exist I wonder ?

The other 3 bathrooms where their is no Sound Matt, this problem has not occured.

 

[frank999]

@Madrab you posted just before posted mine, thanks, yes your suggestion makes sense.

 

[frank999]

@Madrab so inessence your filling in and waterproofing with say AquaSeal and Silicone, any voids or gaps around the bath edge, so to create the fall for water to go into the tub, if it should find itself behind the strips at all ??

As I will be raising the bath up to meet both the Cladseal strip already fixed in place, I will have to raise it to within 10mm, and then just pack the void with as much Silicone as one can get in their, raise the bath to its final position - and hope all the voids get filled.

Then use T'Legs (as suggested) to try stop anymovement, fixed to both corner walls (as the floor is not to be relied upon with the Sound Matt) - on the other 2 edges, I may have to sadly cut slots for the base of the T Legs to sit on the floor boards, fortunately the flats hallway is below, although I am sure some small Impact Sound Transmission might take place.

Support at the corners is a great suggested, thanks, I temporarily jacked the bath up as tight as I could get it to see if that would help, but this resulted in the corners being pushed down and becoming traps for water ponding

 

[Madrab]

@Madrab so in essence your filling in and waterproofing with say AquaSeal and Silicone, any voids or gaps around the bath edge, so to create the fall for water to go into the tub, if it should find itself behind the strips at all ??

Wouldn't even use an aquaseal TBH, no need. If you fill along the baton and on the bath edge where it touches the wall then fit the bath, then that is in essence 2 seals, one along the bottom and one along the edge/top. That provides a fail safe.
Once the wall covering is on and that is then sealed to the bath, if that seal fails and any water does get past that outer seal, it'll then hit the inner seal and shouldn't never make it's way past it and then downwards.
With filling an acrylic bath full of water (not so much a steel bath but always a good idea for any floor deflection), it allows the bath to flex inwards and downwards and as the silicone is still wet it can accommodate that deflection and then sets in that position - lot of weight in a bath when it's full. Once the silicone sets and the bath is emptied, it all bounces back but the silicone will never be overstretched/burst by weight in the future with water and person in it and the seal should remain intact