Bath/Tile Disaster

[Quilted]

I bought a flat last year, and I'm very inexperienced at DIY. My Dad claims to be the fountain of all knowledge, and he decided the bath would be nicer if he ran silicone underneath the edging strip of the tiles.

It's a disaster.

It fills up with black mould which eventually pokes out, it collects water too.

I've tried getting it dry and clean inside and reapplying silicone but it's a total failure.

This is the mess after last week's attempt, tonight I pulled some of the silicone back out with a knife and it's all gone black already.

I've put bleach in there in the hope it kills the mould, but it doesn't work either.

I cannot afford to replace the bathroom, and when the tiler who did my kitchen was round last year I asked him if he could do anything - he was a bit of a lazy dodger, I think, so he said no. I don't really know if anything can be done to clean it up.

Here's some pictures of it.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to solve the problem? I'll pay for a tiler if it's not a huge job to fix it, or I can replace the strip with something....

 

[matt1976]

Clean it all out and get some mold resistant silicone for bathrooms.

like this

 

[Quilted]

I used mould resistant silicone last week... it's gone mouldy already.

I should say I did order more yesterday -

http://www.angliatoolcentre.co.uk/d...ne-sanitary-sealant-310ml-white-pid37716.html

Perhaps that'll be better... I don't have a lot of faith in it though.

 

[Burnerman]

These edging strips are actually fixed beneath the wall tile, so replacing them requires quite major work.
Any existing sealant between the bath and the strip needs to be removed as far as possible, and the area dried.
If you can achieve this, use the very best quality silicone such as Dow Corning or Mapei - never cut corners with this. You'll see that the sealant nozzle can be cut to length. Don't do this, rather get the nozzle between the trim and the bath and squeeze as much compound in as you can, until it oozes out and can be removed.
On one job I had to do, I raised the bath up a fraction on its adjustable legs to get a better seal and there's been no problems since.
Difficult one.....you can help matters by thoroughly drying the area with a chamois leather every time the bath / shower is used. No moisture = no mould.
John

 

[Quilted]

Well, it so happens it's Dow Corning I have arriving tomorrow.

However more has happened. I was in stripping out as much as I can, and it came right off the wall.

So it turns out it's NOT under the tiles, which I *think* is good news...

 

[Burnerman]

Oh hell - its not what I thought This is a stuck on plastic quadrant.
I think you need to consider ceramic quadrant tiles.....usually in 150mm lengths x15 x15mm they are actually what they say they are, and much better quality than you have.
They aren't as widely available as you might think, but a firm called CTD (Ceramic Tile Distributors) stock them, and they come with their own adhesive. I know they do gloss and off white - not sure about other colours.
John

 

[joe-90]

Strip it all out and use the bath legs to raise the height of the bath until the gap disappears - then use mould resisting silicone.

 

[Quilted]

Not what I thought either - nobody thought it'd be one of these 'orrible strips.

I'm in two minds about those tiles.

I would like the bathroom redone completely, tiled all over, the central heating pipe sunk into the wall, and the electric shower replaced with a thermostatic mixer. Plus a new bath and new sink.

I can't afford it - not unless it came in at around 2K, and even then I'd be really struggling.

If I get those quadrant tiles then I'll still want the bathroom done... which means I'll end up wasting them and I expect they're not cheap.

My dad did the wallpaper in the bathroom and that's a disaster too - my fault of course for picking difficult paper and having a room that's not totally straight...

I've removed the edging strips and there's a cavity behind. Whoever the tiler was just simply stopped a little above the bath and badly fitted those strips. The bathroom stinks now that I've let the air into the slightly damp plasterwork. I'll need to clean all that area out, and sterilise it, and then let it dry.

There are a couple of CTDs reasonably near me - two in Glasgow. So I could get the tiles from there.

It sounds a world better than those strips. I have had a look at CTDs website and I don't see them listed.

 

[Quilted]

Strip it all out and use the bath legs to raise the height of the bath until the gap disappears - then use mould resisting silicone.

That might work too.. I have no idea if there's that much give in the legs, and the bath is behind painted, nailed on plywood so it'd be a destructive job to go in and find out.

I don't suppose it's possible/easy to measure the height the bath is off the floor just now to guess if it could be raised or not, without opening up the sides?

 

[joe-90]

If there's no movement in the legs you can slip pieces of ply under them.

 

[Quilted]

I'm thinking those little tiles are the best option so far... the glass shower curtain would need to be removed, and it's pretty tatty and I'm not sure it'd survive the process. If I can get those tiles to do the job...

http://www.toppstiles.co.uk/tprod4656/section-1/Bath-Trim-152-Opal-White-Pack.html

I think that's them, and I can get delivery on them for a fiver..... so two packs of them and I'm sorted. Sadly the gap is an inch at widest but slimmer elsewhere around the bath (because the wall tiles are badly fitted) so I'd need to cut them to size. For a one off job like that I'm better getting a tiler in I guess.

 

[kingandy2nd]

Do people still wall paper in bathrooms?

 

[Quilted]

Not by choice. When I moved in only the area around the bath was tiled. I had to buy a new kicthen, rewire the kitchen, get gas installed, and new gas central heating, boiler, remove the old storage heaters and immerser... I didn't have money to do everything so I just cleaned the bathroom up.

 

[Symptoms]

This is what you need:

http://www.emctiles.co.uk/products/sp.php?sub=Bathroom Fittings 37915 Acc&cat=Tools and Accessories&code=EMC00717&t=d

Topps used to do them years ago ... don't know if they still do.

Edit: copy & paste that whole string into your address bar ... for some reason only half the string is linked.

 

[Quilted]

Hi, that link didn't work. However if it's these - http://www.towertiles.co.uk/Johnson-Opal-White-Bath-Trim-Set then that's what I intend doing.

The bath isn't an easy job to tile as it's slightly recessed into the wall at one end, so the tiler will have joy with that.

There's a tiler lives very close to me so he's going to pop in this evening and let me know about how much it costs - I'll also get a price on tiling the whole room so I can get rid of the wallpaper.