Removing bath sealant

[Appuskidu]

We had tatty mouldy bath sealant around the baths and thought we could remove the old stuff today and then redo the sealant.

We are not great at DIY-I will add that as a disclaimer!!

All the things I’d read say that removing the old stuff is easy but it’s tricky to get the new sealant right, but we are already in a bit of a pickle!

We followed instructions (as per You Tube!) and cut the sealant with a Stanley knife but it just isn’t coming off-loads of bits of sealant are still on the tiles and bath, there’s mouldy bits behind and it’s horrid! It’s now dark and the diy shops are now all shut :(

Has anyone had any success doing this and can give me some tips?! Are we really that useless?!

It's really difficult to get all the sealant off and it takes ages. You can buy sealant remover, that helps. Get down to Screwfix tomorrow! Use bleach on any mould once you've got the sealant off. You might need to let everything dry out before you re-seal. Don't forget to put water in the bath before you re-seal. Use a sealant gun and masking tape can help get neat edges. It's a pig of a job.

I tried to do mine and failed miserably (and am usually pretty good at diy jobs!). A few days after I did it there was an ad on Facebook for a company that did sealant. Cost me £50 to get it done. I think I paid nearly that in remover, a tool to remove it with, sealant (two attempts). Not a job I would ever do again!

Another sealant tip: wrap tape round the cartridge before you use it. It stops it from distorting in the sealant gun and you get a more even bead of sealant.

It is a labour of love. Hours spent scraping it with a Stanley knife . ..

A craft knife is better, like a scalpel, or one of those blades in a handle that's for getting paint off glass. Add a bit of white spirit on a kitchen sponge.

I thought I was going to have to do mine again as it had gone a bit black behind the taps and yellow elsewhere, but I bought some Astonish mould and mildew remover from Poundland. I used it over night several times, rinsed well each morning, and the sealant looks like new. I'm well chuffed.

Scrape as much off with a sharp blade. Then spray what’s left with generous amounts of WD40. Leave for several minutes then scrub with a green scourer. Repeat till all off. Be sure to wash down well with hot soapy water then alcohol or something and dry well or else the new silicone won’t stick. The bath should be full when you seal it. You need to work fast with the new silicone, as if you touch it after the first minute or so you ruin the finish. Apply then smooth with a baby wipe. Better still there’s a special tool though I’ve only done it with a Baby wipe.

Sealant remover will help - it softens the silicon so it can be scraped off. But it's a grotty job however you do it.

Because although sealant is flexible, it's only flexible up to a point. The weight of a body and water make the bath move and if you don't put water it when you are re-seal get you risk the seal breaking when the bath gets used. You don't have to completely fill it and cold water is fine!

We are in a rental house and when we move bed in there were holes in the sealant round the bath and some of the shower stuff was black and didn’t all clean with bleach. I was not confident about removing old sealant and then resealing with new stuff by myself.

Then one day by chance I spotted some sealant in Tesco that you can apply directly onto cleaned and dry existing sealant. It was £8 and has worked brilliantly. It’s called Re-New by Unibond and was a godsend for me. Maybe worth a try

www.amazon.co.uk/UniBond-Silicone-Sealant-bathroom-resistance/dp/B01B66V0O6?tag=mumsnetforum-21

www.screwfix.com/p/no-nonsense-sealant-remover-100ml/88987?tc=AT1&ds_rl=1247848&ds_rl=1245250&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIs_PRpu7c1wIVA-EbCh0cpgfFEAQYASABEgKOOfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CJjZ6Kfu3NcCFVWI7QodAiQElg

This helped when I did ours recently. Worst job EVER. If it needs doing again I'll pay someone! It took days. I used a stanley knife, a steak knife and some tweezers. Once I'd got the main part off I smothered it in the sealant remover and left it for 2 hours.

I spray the sealant with WD 40 and leave it for about an hour, come back and it peels off quite easy, but you do have to clean the area really well to get rid of the WD 40 before you reseal, I’ve done it a few times now.

Also have you tried hg mould spray it’s great, I just spray it around the sealant and grouting that’s mouldy before bedtime then wash it off before you use the bath/shower and the mould has gone, you may have to do it a couple of times if it’s really bad.

I just had someone in to do mine, use checka trade for someone who does mastik sealing. Price is about 60quid for round bath.

Fist he sprayed sealent remover on
Then he took something that looked like a ice scraper but metal and scraped it all off. Apparantly sealent doesn’t stick to sealent. Getting it all off was the biggest part of the job.
Then he filled bath with water as it needs to be weighted down, as a bath drops when you get in it with the weight and if you haven’t weighted it down then it will just split when someone gets in
Then he applied the sealant and waited a while for it To start to go off.
He sprayed something on the sealant, I don’t know what it was. And waited some more.
Then he took some form of weird shaping tool and took it over thr sealent I guess to push it in and take excess off and make it look nice.
Bath was then to be left with thr water in for two days so it set with the flexibility for weigh in it and it dropping down.

All in it was a good couple of hours work, but he also removed panels and checked for leaks in the trap.

It’s not as easy as it looks and it’s also an important job, I’d get someone in.