# Exeter Silicone Services > Exeter Silicone Services is a service line of Hembury Contracting (https://hemburycontracting.co.uk), a sole trader business run by Sam Hembury from Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom. The work is resealing: bath resealing, shower resealing, kitchen worktop and sink sealant, removing and replacing failed or mouldy silicone, whole bathroom reseals, window and door perimeter sealant, and sealant repairs for landlords and letting agents. It is priced per fitting rather than by the hour, and every figure includes VAT and includes the silicone: a bath reseal £95, a shower reseal £95, both together £150, a basin or a screen added £25, a kitchen worktop run £95 on its own or £35 added to a bathroom booking, a whole bathroom £185. Minimum charge £95. Unusually long removal is charged at £60 an hour after the first hour, agreed in advance. No deposit is taken on a standard reseal. Coverage is Exeter and roughly twenty miles around it, across Devon. Contact: 07307 202508 or info@hemburycontracting.co.uk. Booking hours Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm, Saturday 9am to 4pm. Full text of every page on https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/, as markdown, generated from the site's own content at build time. ## Home (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/) ### The black line round your bath is not going to bleach out Mould grows inside the silicone, not on it, which is why bleach only works for a week or two and then it is back. The joint comes out and one fresh bead goes on. - Published prices, including VAT and including the silicone - Every layer of the old joint stripped out, never sealed over - Sanitary grade silicone with a fungicide, white or clear - One visit, one drying day, and photographs before and after ### Bleach whitens it. It does not kill what is under the surface Mould in a sealant joint is not sitting on top of the silicone. It has grown into it, feeding on soap residue and the moisture the joint has been holding, and the black you can see is the part of a colony that reaches the surface. That is why bleach only ever works for a week or two, and why scrubbing does nothing at all. The second thing that keeps it coming back is what somebody did last time. Silicone does not bond to cured silicone, so a bead run over an old one is only as well attached as the layer underneath it. Half the baths we take apart have three layers on them, one of them black, and the top one is already lifting at the corner. So the joint comes out. All of it, down to bare tile and bare acrylic, including the invisible film of residue that ruins the next bead if it is left there. Then it is cleaned, dried, and sealed once, properly. That is the whole business. ### The hour is the removal. The bead is fifteen minutes Anybody can run a line of silicone. What decides whether it is still white years later, or grey by the spring, happens before the cartridge comes out of the bag. - Every layer of the old joint off, including caulk and sealant strip - The residue film taken off with a remover rather than a scraper - Limescale cleared from a shower joint before anything is applied - Both surfaces solvent wiped and the joint dried out - Sanitary grade silicone with a fungicide, white or clear as the room needs - One pass, tooled concave so water runs off rather than sitting on it - Tape pulled while the bead is still wet, which is what makes the line straight - Anything found that is not sealant work pointed out plainly, not sealed over ## What the business can stand behind - Hembury Contracting: Exeter Silicone Services is a service line of Hembury Contracting, Sam Hembury's Exeter business. Same trading entity, same invoices, same VAT registration. - Public liability cover: Insured for work in your home and in occupied rented property. A copy of the certificate goes over by email if you want to see it before booking. - Published prices: The price card is on the site rather than behind a form, VAT included and silicone included. You can work out what your job costs before you get in touch. - The old joint comes out: Every layer, plus the residue film underneath it, before anything new goes on. That is the part that takes the time and it is the part that decides how long the new bead lasts. - Removal tools, not just a blade: Blades held flat on glazed tile and glass where they cannot bite, plastic tools on acrylic, stone resin and painted surfaces where a blade would score. Different surfaces, different tools. - Silicone remover for the residue: The invisible film left after the bulk of a joint is scraped off is what ruins the next bead. It comes off with a purpose made remover and a wipe, not with more scraping. - Sanitary grade silicone with a fungicide: White or clear as the room needs, and a neutral cure silicone on natural stone where an acetoxy one could mark it. Materials are in the price rather than added to it. - Masking, tooling and a wet tape pull: Both sides taped, one pass, tooled to a concave finish that sheds water, and the tape pulled while the silicone is still wet. That is the whole reason a line is straight. - Before and after photographs: Taken as a matter of course. They matter most on letting work, where the set may be what settles a checkout question months later. ## Bath resealing (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/services/bath-resealing) The old sealant round the bath stripped out completely, the joint cleaned back and dried, and a fresh sanitary bead run and tooled. £95 including VAT and silicone. A bath joint fails from underneath. Water gets behind the bead at one end, usually where the bath meets the wall at the tap end, and from then on the silicone is holding water against the tile rather than keeping it out. The black spotting people ring about is the last part of that, not the first. Running a new bead over the top of an old one is the reason so many baths have been sealed three times and still leak. The new silicone bonds to the old silicone, the old silicone is still lifting off the tile, and the whole thing comes away in a sheet six months later. So the old joint comes out. All of it. The price is £95 including VAT, which covers the strip out, the clean down, the silicone and the work. A basin or a screen can be added on the same visit for £25. ### What is included - Every layer of old sealant removed, not sealed over - The tile edge and the bath lip scraped back and solvent wiped - The joint dried out before anything is applied - Sanitary grade silicone with a fungicide, white or clear - Both sides masked, the bead tooled, the tape pulled while it is wet - The wall joint, both ends and the panel edge where there is one - Old silicone bagged and taken away, the room wiped down ### How it runs 1. Sheet the floor: Floor covered and the bath itself protected before a blade comes out. Old silicone comes off in long dirty ribbons and it goes everywhere if nobody has thought about it. 2. Strip the joint out: Every layer, with a blade along the tile and a plastic tool on the acrylic so the bath is not scored. Where the bath has been sealed several times this is most of the job. 3. Clean and dry: Residue taken off with a silicone remover, both surfaces solvent wiped, and the joint left to dry. Silicone will not bond to a damp edge or a greasy one, and this is the step that gets skipped. 4. Mask, seal and tool: Tape both sides, run the bead in one pass, tool it to a clean concave finish, then pull the tape while the silicone is still wet. Tape pulled after it skins takes the edge with it. 5. Leave it alone: The bath stays dry for the rest of the day. It is touch dry in under an hour and it wants a full day before a bath is run in it, which is the one thing worth waiting for. ### Why the old bead has to come out Silicone does not stick to silicone. It cures against it, which looks the same on the day and is not the same thing at all. A bead applied over a failing one has its adhesion limited by the layer underneath, so it lifts when that layer lifts. There is a second problem underneath the first. Mould in a sealant joint grows inside the material, not on it, which is why bleach whitens it for a week or two and then it comes back. Sealing over a mouldy joint traps a living colony behind a clear layer, and it shows through within a few months. Taking the old joint out completely is unglamorous work and it is most of the hour. It is also the whole difference between a reseal that lasts and a reseal that looks good until Christmas. ### Baths that move An acrylic bath flexes when it fills. That is normal, and a properly sized joint copes with it. What a joint cannot cope with is a bath that was never supported or levelled properly underneath, because then it is not flexing by a millimetre, it is dropping. The tell is a joint that has failed in the same place twice in two years, usually along the long wall rather than at the ends. If that is what is happening, you get told, because a third bead will fail the same way and taking your money for it would be a waste of your afternoon and mine. The fix is usually packing or bracing the bath rather than sealing it, which is Hembury Contracting work and can be quoted on the same visit. ### Filling the bath before sealing There is a trade habit of filling the bath with water before running the bead, so the joint is sealed at its widest and the silicone is in compression rather than tension when the bath empties. It is done where the bath is plastic and the gap is tight. It is not automatic. On a well supported bath with a small gap it makes little difference, and it costs the job a couple of hours of waiting. You get asked which you want on the day, with a straight explanation of what it buys. ### Questions **How long before I can use the bath?** Touch dry inside an hour, and safe to use after a full day. Sanitary silicone cures from the outside in and a bead of normal size wants around twenty four hours before it is holding water. Running a bath the same evening is the usual reason a new joint fails early. **Can you just seal over the old one?** No, and this is the one thing worth being firm about. Silicone does not bond to cured silicone, and any mould in the old joint is inside the material rather than on the surface. Sealing over it traps both problems behind a clean looking line for a few months. **White or clear?** White on almost every bath, because it reads as part of the sanitaryware and hides a slightly uneven tile edge. Clear on a dark tile or a stone surround, where a white line draws attention to itself. It is your choice and it costs the same either way. **The bath has been sealed four times. Is that a problem?** Only for the time it takes. Four layers is a lot of stripping out, so it may run into the £60 an hour that applies after the first hour. Send a photograph of the joint first and you get told before it is booked rather than on the day. ## Shower resealing (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/services/shower-resealing) Tray, base, internal corners and the foot of the screen or enclosure resealed properly, with the old joint taken right out. £95 including VAT and silicone. A shower is a harder job than a bath and it is the same price. It gets more water, it gets it hotter, and it gets it in the corners, which is where every enclosure fails first. A shower joint that has gone is not a cosmetic problem for long, because the water behind it is going into a floor rather than an alcove. The work covers the tray or base joint all the way round, the internal vertical corners where the tiled walls meet, and the foot of the screen or the frame of the enclosure. Cubicles, quadrants and walk-ins are all the same job and the same price. £95 including VAT and silicone. A bath resealed on the same visit brings the pair to £150 rather than two separate charges. ### What is included - Tray or shower base joint stripped out all the way round - Internal tiled corners taken back and resealed - The foot of the screen, the door frame or the enclosure profile - Limescale cleared off the joint faces before sealing - Sanitary grade silicone with a fungicide - Tooled to a concave finish that sheds water instead of holding it - Old sealant taken away and the tray left clean ### How it runs 1. Get everything out of the way: Screen doors lifted off their rollers where they come off, shelves and racks moved, and the tray sheeted. Working round a hanging door is how a bead ends up wavy. 2. Cut the old joint out: Blade along the tile, plastic tool on the tray or the acrylic. Corners are done last because they are where the old material is thickest and most stubborn. 3. Descale and dry: A shower joint carries limescale as well as residue, and silicone bonds to scale about as well as it bonds to soap. The faces are cleaned, solvent wiped and dried before anything else happens. 4. Seal in order: Verticals first, then the horizontal tray run, so every joint sheds into the one below it rather than into a corner. Tooled concave, tape pulled wet. 5. Keep it dry: No shower for a full day. That is the only instruction, and it is the one that does most to decide how long the joint lasts: a bead that gets wet before it has cured is a bead that never reaches the strength it was going to have. ### Corners are where showers fail The vertical internal corner of a tiled shower takes running water down two planes at once and it is the joint people seal last and worst. It is also the joint that dries slowest, because it never sees moving air. Sealed properly it wants a slightly fuller bead than the tray run, tooled to a clean hollow so water runs off rather than sitting on a flat shoulder. A corner tooled flat holds a bead of water after every shower, and a joint that is wet for an hour a day is a joint that will grow mould. ### Screens, doors and the metal profile A shower screen is sealed on the outside of the profile and left open on the inside. That is deliberate rather than a shortcut. Water that gets behind the profile has to be able to run back into the tray, and sealing both sides traps it in the channel where it sits, smells and eventually finds the floor. The rubber seals and sweeps on a shower door are parts rather than sealant. They perish, they go brittle and they stop touching the glass, and no amount of silicone fixes that. Where one has gone you get told what it is and where it comes from, rather than having a bead run against it. ### Trays that flex A stone resin tray on a solid floor does not move. A plastic tray on a timber floor with no support underneath moves every time somebody stands in it, and that is a joint that will keep failing whatever is put in it. Where that is what is happening you get told plainly, with what it would take to put right underneath. Hembury Contracting can price that work, and it is a better spend than a fourth bead. ### Sealant is not tanking, and it is not grout Three different things keep water inside a shower and they get confused constantly. Grout is the hard fill between tiles and it is not flexible. Sealant is the flexible joint where two different materials meet, which is why it goes round a tray and not between tiles. Tanking is a waterproof membrane behind the tiles, put in before any of it, and it is the only one of the three actually holding water back. So a shower can be leaking through failed grout, through a failed sealant joint, or because there was never any tanking behind the tiles in the first place, and the three look identical from the doorway. A new bead fixes exactly one of them. What tells them apart is where the water shows up. Damp on the far side of the wall or in a ceiling below usually means water is getting through the wall rather than past a perimeter joint, and no amount of silicone round the tray will change that. Where it looks like that you get told, with what would actually need doing, before any money is taken. ### Questions **How long before the shower can be used?** A full day. Twenty four hours from the bead going in is the number, and a shower is the worst thing to rush because the first use puts hot water straight onto a joint that has not finished curing. If the shower is the only one in the house, say so when booking and the day can be picked around it. **Do you seal inside the shower screen as well?** No, and it is deliberate. The inside of a screen profile has to drain back into the tray. Sealing both sides traps water in the channel, which is where the smell and the eventual floor damage come from. Outside sealed, inside left to drain, is the right way round. **There is black mould in the corners. Will it come back?** Not from the new joint, because the old material and the colony inside it are removed rather than covered. What decides the next few years is ventilation. If the room has no working extractor and the window stays shut, mould will come back to the whole room, joint or no joint, and you will be told that rather than sold a bead. **Can you do a wet room?** The sealant joints in a wet room, yes: the screen, the tiled corners and the perimeter. The tanking underneath a wet room floor is a different trade and a different job, and if the problem is the tanking rather than the sealant, resealing will not touch it. ## Kitchen sealant and worktop sealing (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/services/kitchen-sealant) Worktop to wall joints, upstands, splashbacks and the run round an inset sink, sealed with the old line taken out first. £95 on its own. A kitchen joint fails quietly. Nobody looks behind the kettle, and by the time the sealant along the back of the worktop has gone brown and lifted, water has been running down the back of the units for a while. On a laminate worktop that shows up as a swollen edge that will not go back down. The work covers the worktop to wall joint, the run behind an upstand or a splashback, the joint round an inset sink or a drainer, and the hob surround where there is one. It is the same method as a bathroom: strip out, clean, dry, seal, tool. £95 on its own including VAT and silicone. Added to a bathroom booking on the same visit it is £35, because the set up and the kit are already there. ### What is included - Worktop to wall joint along the full run - Upstand and splashback joints, top and bottom - Round an inset sink or drainer, and the tap base where it needs it - Hob surround where the hob sits in the worktop - Old sealant stripped out rather than sealed over - Clear or white silicone, or a colour matched to the worktop where one exists - Surfaces wiped down and the old material taken away ### How it runs 1. Clear the run: Everything off the worktop and back from the wall. Ten minutes that decides whether the bead is straight, because a joint sealed round a toaster is a joint sealed badly. 2. Cut the old line out: Blade along the tile or the painted wall, plastic tool on the laminate or the stone. Old kitchen sealant is usually thinner and harder than bathroom sealant and it comes off in pieces rather than ribbons. 3. Degrease, then dry: A kitchen joint has cooking grease in it as well as residue, and silicone will not bond through grease. Degreaser first, then a solvent wipe, then dry. 4. Seal and tool: Masked both sides, run in one pass, tooled to a shallow concave finish so nothing catches crumbs, tape pulled wet. 5. Give it the evening: Wipe the worktop rather than washing it down for the rest of the day, and keep water off the joint overnight. Normal use the next morning. ### Sinks, taps and the joint nobody can see The joint round an inset sink is the one that matters most and the one that gets least attention, because half of it is under the rim where nobody looks. On a laminate worktop that joint is the only thing between standing water and chipboard, and once chipboard is wet it swells and stays swollen. The clip-down sinks in most kitchens were bedded on sealant when they were fitted, and that bedding is a consumable. If the sink moves at all when you lean on it, the bedding has gone and the sink wants lifting, cleaning and re-bedding rather than a line run round the outside. ### Worktop materials change the answer Laminate is the common case and the one with the most to lose, because the core is chipboard and water damage there is permanent. Solid timber moves seasonally and wants a joint sized for that movement. Quartz, granite and solid surface do not move and take a tighter, neater line. The silicone changes too. A neutral cure silicone goes on natural stone rather than an acetoxy one, because the acetic acid in a standard bathroom sealant can mark some stones and can corrode the fixings behind the joint. It is the sort of detail nobody notices until it is wrong. ### The joint behind a kitchen tap The seal round the base of a mixer tap is the joint that fails first in most kitchens and the one nobody thinks of as a joint at all. Every wash sends water round the base, the tap gets nudged sideways a hundred times a week, and there is usually nothing under it but a rubber washer that went hard years ago. On a laminate worktop that leak goes straight down into the cut-out edge, which is unsealed chipboard on most kitchens fitted before about 2010. By the time anything shows on the surface the edge of the cut-out has been wet for months. Sealing round a tap base is part of a kitchen booking and it is worth asking for even when the worktop joint looks fine. If the tap itself is loose the fix is tightening it from underneath rather than sealing round it, and you get told which of the two you have. ### Questions **Can you match the sealant to the worktop?** Usually. Clear, white, grey, black and a couple of stone tones are all available off the shelf, and clear is what most kitchens end up with because it disappears against any colour. Tell us the worktop when you book and the right cartridge comes with the van. **The worktop has swollen at the sink. Can sealing fix it?** No. A swollen laminate edge is chipboard that has taken water and expanded, and it does not go back. Sealing the joint stops it getting worse from that point on, which is worth doing, but the edge stays as it is. Replacing that worktop section is a separate job and Hembury Contracting can price it. **Do you do the joint behind the hob?** The sealant joints round it, yes. Nothing on this site is gas work. If a hob has to be lifted out to get at a joint properly, and it is a gas hob, that is a Gas Safe engineer's job and it will be said plainly rather than worked around. ## Silicone removal and replacement (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/services/silicone-removal-and-replacement) The full strip out: mouldy, lifting or badly applied sealant taken out completely, the joint cleaned back to bare surfaces, and a new bead run properly. This is the same work as a bath or a shower reseal, described by the part people search for. Somebody has already tried. There are two or three beads on top of each other, one of them is black, one of them is peeling, and the last one was run without taking the previous ones off. The job is the removal. Once a joint is properly back to bare tile and bare acrylic, sealing it is fifteen minutes. Getting it there when there are four layers, a bead of decorator's caulk somebody used by mistake, and a strip of that peel-off sealant tape underneath it all, is the hour. It is priced as the fitting it is round: a bath, a shower, a kitchen run or a whole bathroom. Extra layers are extra time and you are told before it starts rather than on the invoice. ### What is included - Every layer removed, including caulk and sealant strip - Blade work on tile and glass, plastic tools on acrylic and stone - Silicone residue taken off with a purpose made remover, not just scraped - Mould treated at the surfaces rather than sealed in - Joint solvent wiped and dried before the new bead - A photograph of the bare joint before the new silicone goes on, if you want one - New sanitary grade silicone with a fungicide, tooled and tape pulled wet ### How it runs 1. Look at what is actually there: Layers counted, materials identified, and anything that is not silicone flagged. Acrylic caulk in a wet joint behaves completely differently and wants taking out rather than sealing over. 2. Bulk removal: The thick of it comes away with a blade held nearly flat to the tile, then a plastic tool where the surface is soft. Nothing is prised, because a scored acrylic bath is permanent. 3. Residue: The thin film left behind is the part that ruins the next bead, and it does not come off with a scraper. A silicone remover is left on it, then it is wiped off and the surfaces are cleaned. 4. Treat and dry: Any mould left on the tile or the acrylic is treated at the surface, and the joint is dried out. A joint that has held water for a year is wetter than it looks. 5. Reseal properly: Masked, run in one pass, tooled concave, tape pulled while wet, and the room left for a day. ### Why the residue matters more than the bead Once the visible silicone is off, what is left on the tile is a film a fraction of a millimetre thick that you can barely see and can definitely feel. New silicone applied onto that film bonds to the film, and the film is only loosely attached to the tile. That is the single most common reason a reseal done by somebody in a hurry fails inside a year, and it is invisible on the day it is done, which is why it keeps happening. Taking the residue off with a proper remover rather than a scraper is ten minutes and it is the difference. ### What sealant strip and caulk do in a wet joint Self adhesive sealant strip is sold as an easy fix and it works for about a season. Underneath it the joint is still whatever it was, and the strip itself holds water against the tile along its whole length. It comes off in one piece and it usually brings a surprise with it. Decorator's caulk in a bath joint is the other one. It is a painter's material, it is not waterproof, and it goes soft and grey when it stays wet. It happens because the tubes look the same on the shelf. It has to come out; nothing sticks to it and it will not stop water. ### How long the removal actually takes A joint that has been sealed once and is coming away cleanly is fifteen minutes. A joint with three layers, one of them acrylic caulk that has gone soft, over a strip of sealant tape, in a corner you cannot get a blade square to, is an hour on its own before anything new goes near it. That is the whole reason a photograph is worth sending before a job is booked. Layers show up in a picture: you can see the stepped edge where each bead was run slightly wider than the last, and you can usually see whether the black is in the material or on it. Nothing about that changes the published price for a standard job. It changes whether the job is standard, and it is better for both sides to know that on a Tuesday afternoon by message than on the doorstep on Friday morning. ### Questions **Will removing the old silicone damage the tiles or the bath?** Not with the right tools. Blades are used flat against glazed tile and glass, where they cannot bite, and plastic tools on acrylic, stone resin and painted surfaces, which score easily. Anything already chipped or crazed under the old bead is pointed out before work starts rather than after. **Can I just do it myself with a scraper?** Plenty of people do, and the two things that catch them out are the residue film left on the tile and the drying time. Miss either and the new bead fails early. If you want to have a go, take the old material off and leave the joint bare and dry for a day before you seal it. **There is mould on the wall as well as in the joint.** Then the joint is a symptom. Mould spreading onto the tile grout and the ceiling is a ventilation problem, and a new sealant line does not change the humidity in the room. You get told that, along with what usually fixes it, rather than being sold a bead that will look the same in a year. ## Whole bathroom resealing (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/services/bathroom-resealing) Bath, shower, basin, screen and every tiled splashback run stripped and resealed on one visit. £185 including VAT and silicone. Joints in a bathroom are all the same age, so they fail at roughly the same time. Doing the bath and leaving the shower usually means booking the shower six months later, and paying twice for the same van, the same set up and the same drying day. A whole bathroom is £185 including VAT and silicone: the bath, the shower tray or base, the internal corners, the basin, the screen or enclosure, and any tiled splashback runs. One visit, one drying day, one price. It is the shape most landlords and letting agents book, because a bathroom with every joint clean and white is the single biggest change you can make to how a property shows, for the least money. ### What is included - Bath joint, both ends and the panel edge - Shower tray or base and the internal tiled corners - Screen foot, door frame or enclosure profile - Basin to wall, pedestal and any vanity unit joint - Tiled splashback runs and window board joints in the room - Every old joint stripped out completely, not sealed over - Before and after photographs of each joint if you want them ### How it runs 1. Walk the room: Every sealed joint identified and looked at before anything starts, including the ones people forget: the window board, the back of the basin, the bottom of a splashback. 2. Strip everything out: All the joints in one pass, so the room dries as one room rather than the bath drying while the shower is still being cut out. 3. Clean and dry the lot: Residue off every surface, limescale off the shower, degreaser round the basin. Then the room is left open while the kit is reloaded. 4. Seal in order: Verticals before horizontals, wet areas before dry ones, working out of the room rather than into it. Each bead tooled and taped off as it goes. 5. One drying day: The room is out of use for the rest of the day and overnight. Everything is usable the following morning, which is why this is booked as one visit rather than three. ### The joints people forget The bath and the shower get looked at. The ones that are usually worse are the back of a basin where a toothbrush glass sits, the bottom edge of a tiled splashback, and the joint along a tiled window board, which takes condensation off the glass every winter morning. A whole bathroom booking covers all of them, which is most of its value. It is also why it takes an afternoon rather than an hour, and why doing them together costs less than doing them one at a time. ### Before a tenancy changes, or before a viewing A bathroom with black joints reads as neglected even when the room is clean, because it is the first thing the eye lands on. Clean white lines round everything read as looked after. It is the cheapest change to how a property presents that exists. For end of tenancy work the photographs matter as much as the work does. Every joint is photographed before and after as a matter of course, and the set goes over by email, which is often what settles a deposit question months later. ### What a full reseal will not fix Failed grout. Grout and sealant fail differently and get confused constantly. Sealant is the flexible joint where two different materials meet; grout is the hard fill between tiles. If water is going through a grout line, resealing the perimeter changes nothing. A room with a ventilation problem. If there is mould on the ceiling and up the walls, the bathroom is holding humidity and the joints are just where it shows first. You get told, with the usual causes, rather than being booked in again next year. ### White or clear, and why the whole room should match Bathrooms end up with three different colours of sealant in them, because each joint was done by a different person on a different day. Clear round the basin, white round the bath, and something greyish round the shower where somebody used the wrong tube. It is the sort of thing you cannot unsee once it is pointed out. Doing the room in one visit is the chance to fix that. White is the usual answer, because it reads as part of the sanitaryware and it hides a tile edge that is not quite straight. Clear suits dark tiles, stone and any room where the tiling is the feature and the joints should disappear. It is your choice and it costs the same either way. The only case where the answer is not free is a room with both white sanitaryware and dark tiles, where the bath usually wants white and the shower usually wants clear, and that is worth two minutes of conversation before anybody opens a cartridge. ### Questions **How long is the bathroom out of use?** The afternoon of the work and the night after it. Basin and toilet are usable within an hour or so; the bath and the shower want the full day. If it is the only bathroom in the house, the visit can be timed for a morning so the drying happens overnight. **Is it cheaper than booking the bath and the shower separately?** Yes. A bath and a shower on their own come to £150, and the whole bathroom at £185 adds the basin, the screen and the splashback runs on top of that. One visit, one set up, one drying day is where the difference comes from. **Do you do the toilet and the flooring joints too?** The joint round the base of a close coupled toilet and the joint where the vinyl or the tiled floor meets the bath panel, yes, where they are sealed joints. Skirting, flooring and tiling work itself is a different trade and it is not included. ## Window and door sealing (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/services/window-and-door-sealing) Perimeter joints round window and door frames, inside and out, where the sealant has gone hard, cracked or pulled away from the frame. The joint round a window frame is doing a different job to a bath joint. It is taking movement in two directions, it is in the weather, and it is the line between a wet outside wall and a dry inside one. When it goes hard and cracks, the water goes behind the frame rather than off it. The tell from inside is a damp patch at the head or the reveal of one window and not the others, or a draught you can feel with the back of your hand along one edge. From outside it is a joint that has shrunk away from the frame, gone chalky, or split along its length. Internal and external frame joints are both covered, on the frames where Hembury Contracting does this work: uPVC, timber and aluminium frames in render, brick and blockwork. Anything that needs the frame taking out or the glazing disturbed is a window fitter's job and it will be said so. ### What is included - Old frame sealant cut out along the full perimeter - The joint faces cleaned back and dried - Exterior grade sealant outside, chosen for the substrate - Internal reveal and frame joints where they are the problem - Backing rod in a deep or wide joint so the bead is the right shape - Colour picked to the frame or the render rather than white by default - Access from a ladder at ground and first floor level ### How it runs 1. Find where the water is going: The failed joint is not always the one that looks worst. The head of a window and the top corners take the most weather, and a crack there shows up as damp two feet lower down inside. 2. Cut out and clean: The old bead cut out along its length, the frame edge and the masonry or render face scraped back and brushed off. Dust is as bad for adhesion as damp is. 3. Pack the joint if it needs it: A joint deeper than it is wide is the wrong shape and it will split again. Foam backing rod goes in first so the sealant is a shallow band that can stretch, rather than a deep plug that tears. 4. Seal and tool: Run in one pass and tooled so the face sheds water outwards. On render the tooling matters more than the material, because a shoulder that holds water is a joint that fails at the top. 5. Weather it: Exterior sealant wants a dry few hours to skin. Work is not started on a wet face or in rain, which in Devon is a scheduling matter rather than a preference. ### The right material for the outside A bathroom sealant on an external window joint fails within a couple of years. It is formulated for a stable, sheltered, wet joint, not for ultraviolet light, frost and a frame that expands several millimetres between a January night and a July afternoon. Outside wants a low modulus neutral cure silicone or a hybrid polymer, both of which stay flexible and take the movement. On porous render the surface is primed or the sealant is chosen to suit it, because silicone on dusty render is a bead sitting on a layer of dust. ### What sealing round a window does not fix Failed double glazing. A unit that has misted between the panes has a failed seal inside the glass and it is replaced rather than sealed. The perimeter joint has nothing to do with it. Rot in a timber frame, a cracked sill, a blown render patch or a missing cavity tray. Sealant over any of those hides the problem for a season and traps water behind it, which makes it worse rather than better. If that is what is there, you get told what it is and it is left alone. ### Inside, outside, or both The two joints round a window frame do different jobs and they fail differently. The outside one keeps weather out of the gap between frame and wall. The inside one stops warm, wet air from the room getting into that same gap, where it cools down and turns back into water. The one that matters most for a damp patch is usually the outside. The one that matters most for a cold draught, and for condensation showing up inside the reveal, is the inside. Where a window has a problem it is worth doing both, because opening up one and leaving the other is how a job gets done twice. Bathroom and kitchen windows are the exception worth naming. Those rooms make far more moisture than any other, the inside joint round the frame takes it every day, and it is the first internal sealant in a house to go black. It is the same work as a bathroom reseal and it is priced the same way. ### Questions **Do you do upstairs windows?** First floor from a ladder where the ground allows it and the work is short. Anything higher, anything over a conservatory roof or a drop, and anything that needs a tower or a platform is beyond what this covers and you will be told rather than have somebody take a chance. **Is it the same white silicone as a bathroom?** No. An external frame joint takes ultraviolet, frost and real movement, and a sanitary silicone is not made for any of that. Outside gets a low modulus neutral cure silicone or a hybrid, in a colour picked to the frame or the render. **There is a damp patch inside under the window.** It may be the perimeter joint and it may not. A cracked sill, a blown render patch, a failed cavity tray and simple condensation all show up in the same place. The joint gets looked at first because it is the cheapest thing to rule in or out, and if it is not the cause you get told that rather than sold a bead. ## Sealant repairs for landlords and agents (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/services/landlord-and-agent-sealant-repairs) Booked with the tenant, photographed before and after, invoiced to the agent or the landlord. Fixed prices per bathroom so a job can be approved without a site visit. Hembury Contracting already works with letting agents and landlords around Exeter, and sealant is one of the jobs that comes up on every property eventually. It is small money, it is on the checkout report, and it is awkward to organise because somebody has to get into an occupied flat. The point of a published price card is that this work can be approved off an email. A whole bathroom is a number, not an estimate, so an agent can send the instruction, the tenant can be contacted directly to arrange access, and the invoice can go to the office rather than the tenant. Every joint is photographed before and after as standard. That is what makes a checkout deduction defensible, and it costs nothing extra. ### What is included - Fixed prices per bathroom, per kitchen or per fitting - Access arranged directly with the tenant, with notice - Before and after photographs of every joint, emailed as a set - One invoice to the agent or the landlord, VAT itemised - Multiple properties booked into the same day where they are close - A written note of anything found that is not sealant work - Public liability insured, working in occupied properties ### How it runs 1. Send the instruction: An email with the address, the fittings that need doing and a contact for access is enough. A photograph of the worst joint helps but is not needed to price it. 2. Access arranged with the tenant: Contacted directly, with proper notice and a time window rather than a whole day. Occupied properties are treated as somebody's home rather than a site. 3. The work, photographed: Sheeted, stripped, cleaned, dried, sealed and tooled, with each joint photographed before and after and the room left clean. 4. The tenant is told the drying time: Verbally and in writing on a card left in the room, because a joint used the same evening is a callback that costs everybody money. 5. Photographs and invoice: The photograph set and the invoice go to the office the same week, with anything found that is not sealant work written down plainly. ### Why this is the cheapest thing on a checkout report A bathroom with black joints reads as a neglected property. It is the first thing an incoming tenant photographs and the first thing a checkout clerk writes down, and it makes every other issue in the report look worse than it is. Resealing a bathroom is an afternoon and a fixed price. Almost nothing else on a maintenance list changes the impression of a property that much for that little, which is why it is worth doing between tenancies rather than when somebody complains. ### The condensation conversation, in writing Mould in a bathroom is a live dispute between landlords and tenants, and it is usually both parties being partly right. A joint full of mould gets replaced. A room full of mould is a ventilation and heating question, and a new bead will not touch it. Where that is what is found, it goes in writing with the photographs: what was resealed, what was not, and what is actually causing the spotting. That is more use to a landlord than a clean line and silence, because it is the document that decides who pays for what later. ### What a checkout report usually says, and what it means Sealant appears on inventories in a handful of standard forms, and they are not equivalent. Discoloured or stained sealant is usually fair wear, especially after a long tenancy in a room with poor ventilation. Sealant that is missing, cut away, painted over or filled with something that is not sealant is damage, and it is the kind that is usually chargeable. Mould is the one that turns into a dispute, because both sides have a point. A tenant who never opened a window contributed to it. A landlord whose extractor has not worked for three years contributed to it too. The photographs and a plain written note of what was found are what turn that argument into a decision, and that is the reason both come as standard rather than on request. Where the room itself is the problem rather than the joint, the note says so. That is not the answer an instructing agent is usually hoping for, and it is more use than a clean line and silence, because a bathroom resealed every eighteen months is a bathroom nobody has actually fixed. ### Empty properties are the cheap version of this job The single biggest cost in resealing an occupied property is not the work. It is the access: a time window agreed with somebody at their own home, a room that has to be dry when we arrive, and a full day afterwards when the bath cannot be used. In a void, none of that applies. Keys from the office, the room dry because nobody has used it, and the curing happening overnight with nobody inconvenienced. If a property is between tenancies for even a few days, that is the window to book, and several voids in the same week are worth grouping into one day. ### Questions **Can you deal with the tenant directly?** Yes, and it is usually quicker. Send the address and a contact number with the instruction and access is arranged from there, with notice and a time window. The agent is copied on what is agreed so nobody is guessing. **Do we need a site visit before approving the work?** Not for standard work. The price card is fixed per fitting and per bathroom, so an instruction can be approved off an email. A photograph is only needed where a joint looks like it has been sealed several times over, because that is the case that takes extra time. **Can several properties be done on one day?** Where they are close enough together, yes, and it is worth grouping them. Send the list and you get back a day that covers them, rather than five separate visits with five sets of travelling. **What if the tenant is not in?** A missed access costs a slot, so it is confirmed the day before. Where a property is empty between tenancies a key can be collected from the office, which is the easiest version of this job for everybody. ## Prices (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/prices) Resealing is one of the few trades where the work is predictable enough to put a number on before anyone turns up. A bath is a bath. So the prices are on the page rather than behind a form, and the cartridge is in the figure rather than added afterwards. ### The price card Every figure includes VAT and includes the silicone. No call out charge, no materials line, no charge for stripping out what is already there. - Bath reseal: £95. The joint round the bath stripped out, cleaned back, dried and resealed. Includes the wall joint and the ends, and the panel edge where there is one. - Shower reseal: £95. Tray or shower base joint, the internal corners and the foot of the screen or the enclosure frame. Cubicles and walk-ins are the same price. - Bath and shower together: £150. Both on one visit. Cheaper than the two on their own because the strip out, the set up and the drying time overlap. - Basin or shower screen added: + £25. Added to any of the above while the kit is already out. Covers a basin to wall joint, a separate screen, or a splashback run. - Kitchen worktop or sink: £95 on its own. Worktop to wall, the upstand run and round an inset sink. Add it to a bathroom booking for £35 instead. - Whole bathroom: £185. Bath, shower, basin, screen and any tiled splashback runs, all stripped and resealed on one visit. The usual end of tenancy job. ### The minimum, and the hourly rate behind it The minimum charge is £95. A single joint on its own still means a van, a strip out, a clean down and the drying time, so a smaller job does not cost meaningfully less to do. Awkward or extra work runs at £60 an hour after the first hour: a bath that has been sealed four times over and needs three layers taking off, a tiled bath surround with a shelf built into it, or a joint that has moved because the bath is not supported. You are told before that clock starts, not after. If a job turns out to need something that is not sealing at all, you are told before any money changes hands rather than after. ### What is in the price The same list every time, so there is nothing to argue about when the invoice arrives. - The silicone: A sanitary grade silicone with a fungicide in it, in white or clear as the room needs. Materials are in the price and are not a separate line. - Stripping out the old joint: Every bit of it, not a bead run over the top. That is the part that takes the time and it is included rather than charged as extra. - Cleaning and drying the joint: Residue removed, the surfaces cleaned with a solvent wipe and the joint dried out properly, because silicone will not hold on a damp or greasy edge. - Masking and tooling: Both sides taped, the bead run, tooled to a clean concave finish and the tape pulled while it is still wet. That is what makes the line straight. - Clearing up: Floor sheeted before anything starts, old silicone bagged and taken away, and the room left wiped down. - Before and after photographs: Taken on every job as a matter of course and emailed over. On letting work they are often what settles a checkout question months later. ### Where most jobs land None of these are extra prices. They are the shapes of job the card above already covers, so you can see where yours sits before you get in touch. - One bath, sealed once, five years old: £95. Around an hour on site. - Shower tray and screen in a cubicle: £95. The corners take longer than the tray run does. - Bath and a separate shower in the same room: £150 together rather than two separate visits. - Kitchen worktop, upstand and sink: £95 on its own, or £35 added to a bathroom booking on the same visit. - Whole bathroom before a tenancy changes: £185 for the lot, photographed before and after. - A bath sealed over four times by four people: £95 plus £60 an hour after the first hour for the extra stripping out. Send a photograph and you get told in advance. ### What is not in the price Tiling, grouting and re-grouting. A failed grout line and a failed sealant line look similar and are not the same repair. If the grout is the problem you get told, with what it would take to put right. Plumbing. A leaking waste, a dripping tap or a bath that moves because it is not supported underneath are all causes of a failed joint that resealing will not fix. Sealing over a leak buys a few weeks and then it comes back. Replacing a bath panel, a screen seal, a shower door gasket or a tile. Those are parts, and they get pointed out and priced separately rather than absorbed. Mould in the room itself. If black spotting is on the ceiling and the walls as well as the joint, the room has a ventilation problem and a new bead will not solve it. ## How it works (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/how-it-works) There is nothing hidden in this. You know the price before anybody arrives, the work is an hour or an afternoon, and the only thing asked of you afterwards is that the joint stays dry until the next day. 1. Send a photograph: One picture of the worst joint answers more than a paragraph of description. It shows how many layers are on it, whether it is silicone or caulk, and whether the problem is the joint or something behind it. 2. Get a price, not an estimate: Back comes a figure off the published card, £95 for a bath or a shower, £185 for a whole bathroom, and the next free slot. If the photograph shows something that will take longer, you are told then rather than on the day. 3. The room gets covered: On the day the floor is sheeted and the bath or tray is protected before a blade comes out. Old silicone comes off in long dirty ribbons and it goes everywhere if nobody has thought about it. 4. The old joint comes out: Every layer. Blade flat on glazed tile and glass, plastic tools on acrylic and stone resin so nothing is scored. Where a bath has been sealed several times this is most of the visit. 5. Residue off, surfaces dried: The invisible film left behind comes off with a silicone remover rather than a scraper, both faces are solvent wiped, and the joint is dried. This is the step that decides whether the new bead lasts. 6. Mask, seal, tool, pull the tape: Both sides taped, the bead run in one pass, tooled to a clean concave finish, and the tape pulled while the silicone is still wet. Tape pulled after it skins takes the edge with it. 7. Leave it for a day: Touch dry within the hour, and safe to use after twenty four. That is the only instruction you are given, and it is the one that does most to decide how long the joint lasts, because a bead that gets wet before it has cured never reaches the strength it was going to have. ### What is handed over There is no report on a reseal. What you get instead is a joint in a known condition, a set of photographs, and a straight account of anything found that resealing does not fix. - A joint that was bare before it was sealed: Photographed at that stage if you want it, which is the only moment you can actually see that the old material is gone rather than covered. - Before and after photographs: Taken as a matter of course and emailed over. On letting work they may be what settles a checkout question months later. - A note of anything that is not sealant: A bath that moves, a tray with no support, a leaking waste, failed grout, a perished shower door seal or a room with a ventilation problem. What it is, whether it matters, and what usually fixes it. - The drying time, in writing: Said out loud and left on a card in the room, because in a rented property the person who booked it is often not the person who will run the first bath. ### One visit, one drying day Nothing is taken away and nothing has to come back. The room is out of use for the rest of the day and normal the following morning, which is why a whole bathroom is booked as one visit rather than three. ### Worth knowing before booking - The room has to be dry to start: A shower used an hour before we arrive is a joint that cannot be sealed that morning. Where possible, keep the bath or shower out of use from the night before. If that is not practical, say so and the visit can be timed round it. - Twenty four hours afterwards: Basin and toilet are usable within the hour. The bath and the shower want a full day, which is the figure on the tube we use; where a product states something different, that figure is the one that counts and you are told it on the day. If it is the only bathroom in the house, book a morning slot so the curing happens overnight. - This is sealing, not tiling or plumbing: Failed grout, a leaking waste, an unsupported bath and a perished shower door seal all look like sealant problems and none of them are. Where that is the cause you get told, and Hembury Contracting can price the actual repair. - Access and parking: Somebody to let us in, and parking within carrying distance of the door, because the kit comes in and out of a van. In a rented property access is arranged with the tenant directly, with notice. ## About (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/about) Exeter Silicone Services is part of Hembury Contracting. Same people, same insurance, same invoices. The site exists because resealing is a job people search for on its own, and burying it in a list of twenty other services helps nobody find it. ## Areas covered (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/areas) The working area runs from the Exeter city districts out to the estuary at Topsham and Exmouth, down the coast as far as Teignmouth and Dawlish, west to Okehampton and the edge of Dartmoor, north to Tiverton and Crediton, and east through Ottery St Mary to Honiton and Sidmouth. A bath in Crediton and a bath in Topsham are the same job at the same price, and there is no travel charge anywhere on this list. What does change between them is the kind of bathroom, so that is how the list below is grouped: the city districts, the estuary and coast, and the market towns. If you are just outside the area, ask. The answer depends on the day and what else is booked nearby, and you will get a straight one rather than a maybe. One practical note that applies everywhere on this list. The room has to be dry to start, which is easy to arrange and easy to forget: a shower used an hour before we arrive is a joint that cannot be sealed that morning. Keeping the bath or the shower out of use from the night before is the single most useful thing anybody does for their own booking, and where that is not practical the visit can be timed round it instead. ### The Exeter districts Most of the work is here, and most of it is in Victorian and Edwardian terraces where the bathroom was put in later, often over what used to be a back bedroom or a scullery. Panelled baths against a tiled half wall, tight floor space, and a joint you have to kneel in the doorway to reach. Two things come up repeatedly in the older city stock. Baths sat on timber floors that flex, which is why a joint on the long wall fails again and again while the ends stay perfect. And rooms with a window painted shut and an extractor that was never wired to anything, where the mould is on the ceiling as well as in the joint. Towns: Exeter, Devon (EX1-EX6); Heavitree, Devon (EX1); St Thomas, Devon (EX2, EX4); Pinhoe, Devon (EX1, EX4); Alphington, Devon (EX2); Ide, Devon (EX2). Parking permit zones cover a good deal of Heavitree, St Thomas and the streets round the city centre, so a permit or a bay is worth mentioning when you book. ### The estuary and the coast A lot of holiday flats and holiday lets, which changes the job in one specific way: the bathroom is used hard for six months and then shut up for six, and a room that is shut up damp is a room that grows mould in every joint at once. These are also the bookings that come with a deadline, because the reseal has to happen in a changeover window. A whole bathroom in a morning, dry overnight and usable for the next guests is the usual shape, and it is worth saying at the point of booking rather than hoping. Towns: Topsham, Devon (EX3); Exmouth, Devon (EX8); Budleigh Salterton, Devon (EX9); Sidmouth, Devon (EX10); Dawlish, Devon (EX7); Teignmouth, Devon (TQ14); Kenton, Devon (EX6). Changeover work is best booked a week or two out. A slot on the day somebody leaves is easy to hold and hard to find at short notice in July. ### The market towns and the villages Everything from new build estates at Cranbrook, where the bathrooms are three or four years old and having their first reseal, to older village houses where the bath was fitted into a room that was never square and the gap between bath and wall runs from two millimetres at one end to nine at the other. A wide, uneven gap is the one thing that really does change how a joint is made rather than what it costs. Past a certain width a single bead is the wrong answer and the gap wants backing or packing first, otherwise the silicone sags in the middle and tears at the edges within a year. Towns: Cranbrook, Devon (EX5); Broadclyst, Devon (EX5); Ottery St Mary, Devon (EX11); Honiton, Devon (EX14); Cullompton, Devon (EX15); Tiverton, Devon (EX16); Crediton, Devon (EX17); Okehampton, Devon (EX20); Newton Abbot, Devon (TQ12); Bovey Tracey, Devon (TQ13); Chudleigh, Devon (TQ13). Village and outlying jobs are grouped where possible, so if a neighbour wants theirs done too it is worth mentioning when you book. ### Just outside the list Places like Axminster, Tavistock, Totnes and Torquay are past the point where a single reseal covers the driving, but they are not a no. Where two or three jobs can be grouped on one day, or where it is a whole bathroom rather than a single joint, it usually works. The way to find out is to ask with the postcode and what needs doing. You will get either a date or a straight no, rather than being kept waiting on a maybe. ## Our work (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/our-work) The pairs below are illustrations, generated the same way as every other photograph on this site. Each one shows the same joint in two states from the same camera position, which is what makes them useful, and none of them is a customer's bathroom. Real job photographs are taken on every booking, before and after, and they go to whoever booked the work. They will replace these as the diary fills, and when they do the caption will say which town and which month. Until then this page says what it is rather than implying something it is not. - Stripped back to bare: Every layer off, down to bare tile and bare acrylic. If a joint has been sealed three times this is most of the visit, and it is the only moment you can see that the old material has gone rather than been covered. - Masked, both sides: Low-tack tape either side of the joint, set to the width the finished bead should be. That is what makes a line straight, not a steady hand, and it is why the tape comes off while the silicone is still wet. - Tooled concave: The finished bead is a hollow rather than a flat band or a shoulder, so water runs off it instead of sitting on it. A joint that stays wet an hour longer each day is the joint that goes black first. - The kitchen version: Same method, different material. A worktop run takes a degrease before the solvent wipe, because silicone will not bond through cooking grease any more than it will through soap. ## Can you reseal a bath or shower without removing the old silicone? (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/guides/reseal-without-removing-old-silicone) No. Not in any way that lasts, and the reason is worth two minutes because it explains almost every failed reseal anybody has ever paid for. It is a reasonable question. Running a fresh bead over a tired one looks like it should work, it takes twenty minutes, and on the day it is finished it looks perfect. It is also the single most common thing done to a bath joint, which is why so many baths have three layers of silicone on them and a black line at the tap end. ### Silicone does not bond to cured silicone Fresh silicone bonds well to glass, glazed ceramic, acrylic, stone and steel, which is why a joint works at all. It does not bond to silicone that has already cured. It sits against it, it takes the shape of it, and it holds on with very little grip. That means a new bead is only as well attached as the old bead underneath it. If the old one is lifting at one corner, the new one comes away with it, usually in one long piece, and usually about six months later when whoever did it is not around. This is also why a joint that has been sealed three times is harder to put right than one that has never been touched. There is more to take off, and each layer has to come off separately. ### The mould is inside the material, not on it Black spotting in an old joint is not dirt on the surface. It is mould that has grown into the silicone, feeding on soap residue and the moisture the joint has been holding. That is why bleach whitens it for a week or two and then it comes back, and why scrubbing does nothing. Seal over that and you have put a clear layer of new material over a living colony with a moisture supply. It does not stop; it carries on, and within a few months it shows through the new bead as a grey shadow, then as spots. There is no product that fixes this from above. The material with the mould in it has to leave the room. ### The part nobody mentions: the residue film Even when somebody does take the old joint off properly with a blade, there is a film left behind on the tile and the bath. It is a fraction of a millimetre thick, you can barely see it, and you can definitely feel it if you run a fingernail along the edge. New silicone applied onto that film bonds to the film. The film is loosely attached to the tile. So the joint fails early, for the same reason as before, and this time nothing looked wrong on the day at all. The film comes off with a purpose made silicone remover left on for a few minutes and then wiped away, followed by a solvent wipe. It takes ten minutes and it is the difference between a reseal that lasts and one that does not. ### If you are doing it yourself It is a job worth having a go at, and the two things that catch people out are both above. Take every layer off, then treat the residue rather than assuming a scraped tile is a clean tile. After that: let the joint dry properly, and give it longer than feels necessary. A joint that has been holding water for a year is wetter than it looks. Mask both sides, run the bead in one continuous pass, tool it once with a wet finger or a spatula, and pull the tape immediately while the silicone is still wet. Tape pulled after it has skinned will drag the edge off with it. Then leave it alone for a full day. That last part is free and it is the one most people get wrong. **What about the sealant strip that sticks over the top?** Self adhesive sealant strip works for about a season. Underneath it the joint is whatever it was before, and the strip itself holds water against the tile along its whole length. It comes off in one piece later on, usually with something unpleasant behind it. **Can I paint over mouldy sealant?** No. Nothing adheres to silicone reliably, paint least of all, and the mould is inside the material anyway. There is no coating that turns a failed joint into a good one. ## Why does bathroom sealant go mouldy, and can it be stopped? (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/guides/why-bathroom-sealant-goes-mouldy) Mould needs three things: moisture, something to eat, and a surface it can get into. A bathroom sealant joint provides all three better than almost anywhere else in a house. The moisture is obvious. The food is less so, and it is the part worth understanding, because it is the thing you can actually change. ### It is eating the soap, not the silicone Cured silicone itself is not much of a meal. What sits on it is: a film of soap, shampoo, body oils, shower gel and skin, laid down a little more with every use and never quite rinsed off the joint. That film is the food supply, and a joint that is wet for hours a day keeps it in the condition mould likes. The colony then grows down into the surface of the silicone rather than sitting on top of it, which is why it cannot be wiped, scrubbed or bleached out once it is established. Bleach reaches the part at the surface and turns the visible black to grey or white. It looks fixed for a couple of weeks. What is under the surface is untouched, and it grows back out. ### Why some joints go and others do not In almost every bathroom, one joint goes first and the others follow years later. It is nearly always the one that stays wet the longest: the internal corner of a shower, the tap end of a bath, the back edge of a tray where a screen drips onto it. The shape of the bead matters more than people expect. A joint tooled to a clean concave hollow sheds water off itself. A joint left flat, or worse, left with a shoulder standing proud of the tile, holds a thin bead of water along its length after every use. That joint is wet for an hour a day longer than the one next to it, and it goes first. Ventilation decides the rest. A room where the air changes after a shower dries its joints in twenty minutes. A room with the door shut, no extractor and a window that stays closed keeps them damp for hours, every day, all winter. ### What actually slows it down Use the extractor, and leave it running for a quarter of an hour after the shower rather than switching it off with the light. Most of the water in the air leaves in that window. Open the window when the weather allows. Wipe the joints down after a shower if you are the sort of person who will actually do it, because that removes the food rather than the moisture, and it works better than anything else on this list. Sanitary silicone containing a fungicide buys you time. It is not permanent protection and it is not a claim worth making: the fungicide leaches out of the surface over a few years, which is roughly the point at which joints start going. It is what should be used in a bathroom, but it is not a cure for a room that stays wet. ### When the joint is not the problem If there is black spotting on the ceiling, in the corners of the walls, on the window reveal or behind furniture on an outside wall, the joint is a symptom rather than the cause. The room is holding humidity, and a new bead will look clean for a while and then match the rest of the room. That is a ventilation, heating and insulation question, and it is worth solving in that order: get the moist air out, keep the surfaces warm enough that water does not condense on them, then worry about the sealant. Anybody who resealed that bathroom without saying so has taken your money for something that was never going to work. **Does anti-mould silicone stop it coming back?** It slows it down. The fungicide in a sanitary grade silicone works at the surface and it depletes over a few years. It is the right material for a bathroom and it is not a permanent answer, and any claim that it is should be treated carefully. **How often should a bathroom be resealed?** There is no schedule worth publishing, because a well ventilated bathroom and a badly ventilated one are years apart. The signal to act is a joint that is discolouring or lifting at an end, not a date. **Will cleaning it every week keep it white?** It helps more than most things, because you are removing the food supply rather than attacking the mould. Wiping the joints dry after a shower does more for them than any spray does. ## How long does silicone take to dry, and when can you use the bath? (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/guides/how-long-silicone-takes-to-dry) Touch dry in twenty minutes to an hour. Safe to put water against after a full twenty four hours. Those are two different things happening at two different speeds, and the gap between them is where joints get ruined. If you only take one number away, take the second one. A bath run the same evening is the most common reason a new joint fails within a year. ### Skinning is not curing Silicone does not dry the way paint does, by losing a solvent. It cures by reacting with moisture in the air, and it does that from the outside in. Within the first hour a skin forms on the surface, which is what people mean when they say it is dry. Underneath that skin the material is still soft. The cure then works inwards at roughly two to three millimetres a day. A normal bath bead is deeper than that, which is where twenty four hours comes from as a rule of thumb: enough of the depth has cured for the joint to hold, take movement and resist water. A wide or deep joint takes longer, not the same time. If a gap has been filled with a fat bead because the bath sits away from the wall, give it two days rather than one. ### What changes the timing Humidity speeds it up, because moisture in the air is the thing the reaction needs. A cold, dry room in February cures more slowly than a warm, humid one in July, which is the opposite of what most people expect. Warmth helps, within reason. A cold bathroom slows everything down. Blasting a joint with a hairdryer or a heat gun does not: it skins the surface faster and can leave the material underneath soft for longer, and it can distort the bead. Airflow helps, gently. Leaving the door and the window open is worth doing. Running the extractor for the first hour is worth doing. Neither of those replaces the day. ### What happens if you use it too soon Two things, and both are permanent. Hot water against an uncured bead swells and softens it, so it loses its bond to the tile at exactly the point where it needed it most, at the wet edge. It looks fine and it is already failing. The other is movement. An acrylic bath drops by a millimetre or two when it fills, and a joint that has not cured cannot take that movement yet, so it tears internally. You will not see the tear. You will see the black line six months earlier than you should have done. Nothing is lost by waiting. Everything is lost by not, and there is no way to tell from looking which of the two happened. ### Practical timings for a real bathroom Basin and toilet: usable within an hour of the joints being finished, because neither puts standing water against a new bead. Shower: a full twenty four hours, and it is the one worth being strict about because the first use puts hot running water straight onto the joint. If it is the only shower in the house, book a morning slot so the curing runs overnight. Bath: a full twenty four hours before it is filled. Wiping it out with a damp cloth after a few hours does no harm. Kitchen worktop: wipe rather than wash for the rest of the day, and normal use the following morning. **Can I speed it up with a hairdryer?** No, and it can make things worse. Heat skins the surface faster while the material underneath stays soft, and it can distort the bead. Warmth and normal airflow help; forcing it does not. **It still smells of vinegar. Is that normal?** Yes. Standard sanitary silicone is acetoxy cure, and the smell is acetic acid given off as it reacts. It fades over the first day or so as the cure completes, and airing the room clears it. **How long before I can grout or paint next to it?** Leave it the full day first. Paint will not adhere to silicone at all, cured or not, so a joint that needs painting over was the wrong material for that joint in the first place. ## Why does bathroom sealant leak, and is the sealant even the problem? (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/guides/why-bathroom-sealant-leaks) A leak under a bath is usually one of three things: the sealant joint, the grout, or the plumbing. They produce the same brown patch on a downstairs ceiling and they cost very different amounts to fix, so the diagnosis is worth doing before anybody starts work. The good news is that you can narrow it down yourself in about twenty minutes with a torch and a towel, and nothing in this article requires a tool you do not already own. ### The three tests, in the order worth doing them Dry the joint completely, then fill the bath to the level you normally would and leave it for an hour without getting in. If water appears below, the leak is under the bath and not at the joint: a filled bath puts no water against the sealant line. That is a plumbing or a waste problem. Now empty it and run the shower against the wall for five minutes with nobody in the bath, aiming at the tiles rather than the joint. If water appears now, the grout is the suspect, because the water going in is going through the wall face rather than the joint at the bottom of it. Finally, run water directly along the joint at the point where the bath meets the tile. If that is the run that produces the leak, the sealant is the fault, and it is the cheapest of the three to put right. ### What a failed sealant joint actually looks like It rarely fails in the middle. It fails at one end, almost always the tap end, where the bath flexes most as it fills and empties, and where somebody has stood in it. Look along the joint at a low angle with a torch rather than straight on. You are looking for a hairline shadow between the silicone and the tile, or the silicone and the bath. A joint can look perfectly white and still be open along a foot of its length. Push down gently on the bath rim near the tap end and watch the joint. If it opens as the bath moves, the bath is not supported properly underneath, and a new bead alone will fail the same way. That is a bath frame job with a reseal after it, and you should be told that rather than sold a reseal on its own. ### When it is the grout, not the sealant Grout and sealant do different jobs and fail differently. Grout is rigid, it sits between tiles, and it fails by cracking or falling out in short sections. Sealant is flexible, it sits where two different materials meet, and it fails by lifting away along a length. If the tile face feels cold and slightly damp two or three rows up, or a tile sounds hollow when you tap it, the water is getting in through the wall rather than at the bottom of it. Resealing the bath joint will change nothing. This is a real repair with a real cost, and it is not the same trade as resealing. If it turns out to be the grout you get told, with what it would take to put right, rather than having a fresh bead run over a problem that is above it. ### When it is the plumbing A waste trap that has been knocked, a shower valve weeping behind the tiles, or an overflow that has never been tightened will all produce a leak that appears when the bath is used and stops when it is not, which is exactly what a failed joint looks like from downstairs. The bath panel is usually four screws. Take it off, put a torch on the floor pointing up at the underside of the bath, and use it while somebody runs water. You will see a drip before you see a stain. If it is plumbing, it needs a plumber. Sealing over a leak buys a few weeks and then the same patch comes back slightly larger, which is why so many ceilings get painted twice. **The leak only happens when we shower, not when we bathe. What does that mean?** It points away from the waste and the overflow, because neither is under pressure when the bath is empty. It is usually either the joint at the bottom of the shower run or the grout on the wall the shower hits, and the five minute test above will separate the two. **Can I just seal over the gap until I get it sorted?** It will hold for a few weeks and it will make the eventual repair harder, because there is then another layer to take off. If you need a temporary measure, use the shower over the tray rather than the bath and keep the joint dry. **Do you charge to diagnose it?** No. Send a photograph of the joint and say what you have already noticed and you get an opinion back before anything is booked. If it reads as plumbing or grout rather than sealant you are told that, because a reseal that does not fix the problem is worse than no reseal at all. ## Which silicone should go in a bathroom, and does the type matter? (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/guides/which-silicone-for-a-bathroom) There are about forty tubes on the shelf and roughly three decisions inside them. This is what the three are, and why the cheapest tube is the expensive one. Nothing here is a product recommendation. It is the properties to look for on the back of the tube, which is more useful, because what is on the shelf changes and the chemistry does not. ### Sanitary grade, not general purpose A sanitary silicone has a fungicide in the cured film. A general purpose one does not. In a room that holds warm moisture for an hour a day, that difference decides whether the joint goes grey in a year or stays white for several. The fungicide is not permanent. It is consumed slowly, which is one reason no sealant lasts forever and why nobody serious offers a guarantee on a bathroom joint. It buys years rather than decades, and it is the single most useful thing on the label. The word to look for is sanitary or mould resistant on the front, and a stated fungicide on the back. If neither is there, it is a general purpose tube in a bathroom colour. ### Acetoxy or neutral cure Acetoxy silicone is the one that smells strongly of vinegar as it cures. It grips glazed ceramic, glass and most sanitary acrylic well, and it is what belongs on an ordinary tiled bath or shower. Most bath manufacturers state a sealant type in their fitting instructions, and where they do, that instruction outranks anything on this page. Neutral cure silicone smells of very little. It is slower and it costs more, and it is what belongs anywhere acetic acid would cause a problem: natural stone, which it can stain, marble and some composite worktops, mirrors, and metals that corrode. On stone specifically, neutral cure alone is not the whole answer: some neutral products still leach oils into a porous stone and leave a shadow, so the tube has to say it is suitable for natural stone rather than simply saying neutral cure. Getting this wrong on a stone worktop or a marble splashback shows up as a permanent dark edge along the joint, and it does not come out. If the surface is stone, or you are not sure whether it is stone, use neutral cure. ### White or clear, and where each one wins White is more forgiving. It hides a slightly uneven line and it matches most baths and trays, which is why the majority of bathroom joints are white. Clear is better where the two surfaces either side of the joint are different colours, on a dark tile, or against a stone worktop, because a white line there draws the eye to itself. It is less forgiving of a poor bead, because you can see the substrate through it, and it can look slightly grey once it cures in a deep joint. Coloured and grey silicone exists for matching grout lines. It is worth it when the joint runs against grout of the same colour and rarely otherwise. ### The things on the tube that do not matter much A large number on the front claiming a number of years is a marketing figure. Every silicone in a wet room is at the mercy of ventilation, how often the joint is dried, and whether the substrate was clean when it went on. Those three do more than the brand does. Rapid cure formulations set faster but are not stronger, and they give you less time to tool the bead, which is where most home attempts go wrong. The extra minutes are worth more than the saved hours. One thing that does matter, and is never on the front: the tube date. Silicone has a shelf life, usually somewhere between twelve and eighteen months, and an old tube skins in the nozzle and cures unevenly. Check the stamp before you buy. **Is there a silicone that never goes mouldy?** No. A sanitary grade with a fungicide resists it for years rather than months, and drying the joint after a shower does more than any product on the shelf. Anything sold as permanently mould proof is selling the fungicide as though it were forever. **What silicone do you use?** A sanitary grade with a fungicide, acetoxy on tile and acrylic, and a stone safe neutral cure on stone or a composite worktop, in white or clear as the room needs. It is in the price rather than added as a materials line. Where a bath, tray or worktop maker specifies something in particular, we use theirs. **Can I use bath sealant on a kitchen worktop?** On a laminate worktop against a tiled upstand, yes. On granite, quartz, marble or any natural stone, use a product whose own label says it is suitable for natural stone. Neutral cure is the starting point, because acetoxy silicone can leave a permanent stain along the edge of a porous stone, but not every neutral cure product is stone safe. ## How often should bathroom sealant be replaced? (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/guides/how-often-to-replace-bathroom-sealant) Nobody can put a number on it that is worth anything, because the same silicone in the same bathroom lasts very different lengths of time depending on how the room is used and whether it is ventilated. So this article is about the four signs instead. If none of them is there, leave it alone. If one of them is, it is due, and doing it before it leaks is the cheap version of this job. ### The four signs it is due It has lifted anywhere along its length. Look along the joint at a low angle with a torch, not straight on. A hairline shadow between the silicone and the tile means water is already getting behind it, whatever the front of the bead looks like. The black is inside rather than on top. If it stays after a clean, the mould has grown into the material and the joint has to come out. Bleach whitens the surface of a colony rather than killing it. It has shrunk. An old bead pulls back slightly from one or both edges as the plasticisers leave it, and the tell is a fine gap at the ends before the middle. It has gone hard. Press it with a fingernail. Fresh sanitary silicone gives; an old one is firm and slightly brittle, which means it can no longer take the movement of a bath filling and emptying and will open at the next flex. ### Why the same joint lasts different lengths of time Ventilation does more than anything else. A joint in a room with a working extractor that runs on for a few minutes after a shower stays dry for most of the day. The same joint in a room where the window stays shut in winter holds moisture continuously, and continuous moisture is what feeds the mould. Use matters next. A family bathroom taking four showers a day is a different environment from a spare bathroom used at Christmas, and the joints wear accordingly. Then there is what was under it when it went on. A bead run onto a joint that was not dry, or onto a residue film, can fail inside a year regardless of the product. Most of the very short lifespans people report are this rather than the silicone. ### What makes a joint last longer, for free Wipe the joint down with a dry cloth after a shower, or at least at the end of the day. Ten seconds, and it takes the standing water off the one surface that holds it against the tile. Run the extractor for ten minutes after the room is empty rather than switching it off with the light. If there is no extractor, leave the window on the vent catch and the door open. Do not use a bleach spray on the joint as routine maintenance. It whitens the surface and does not reach the mould inside the material, and repeated bleaching leaves the surface of the silicone chalky and slightly porous, which makes it hold dirt faster afterwards. ### Doing it before it leaks is the cheap version A joint replaced because it looks tired is a resealing job. A joint replaced after water has been getting behind it for six months can involve a soft floor, a stained ceiling below, or a bath that has to come out, and none of that is resealing work. That is the whole argument for acting on the four signs rather than waiting for a visible problem. It is also why a landlord with several properties is usually better off resealing between tenancies than reacting to a report. If you are not sure which of the four you are looking at, a photograph along the joint at a low angle answers it in most cases, and it costs nothing to send one. **Is there an interval I should just book it in on?** No, and anybody offering one is guessing. The four signs above are the test. On rented property, between tenancies is a sensible rhythm because the room is empty and the photographs settle any question later. **The joint looks fine but smells musty. Is that the sealant?** It can be. Mould in a joint is a living thing and it smells before it shows in some rooms, particularly behind a bath panel. Take the panel off and look underneath before assuming it is the visible joint. **Can one bad section be replaced rather than the whole run?** It can be done, and it rarely lasts, because the new section is butted against cured silicone at each end and those two joins are then the weakest points in the run. A full length is the sensible unit, and it is what the price covers. ## Questions and answers **How long does a reseal take?** A single bath or shower is around an hour on site, most of which is taking the old joint out. A whole bathroom is an afternoon. What takes longer is the curing: the room needs to stay dry for the rest of the day, and a bath or shower wants a full twenty four hours before it is used. **Can you not just seal over the old sealant?** No. Silicone does not bond to cured silicone, so a new bead is only as well attached as the layer under it, and any mould in the old joint is inside the material rather than on it. Sealing over both problems hides them for a few months. It is the single most common reason a bath has been sealed three times. **Will the black mould come back?** Not from the new joint, because the old material and everything living in it is removed rather than covered. What decides the next few years is the room. A bathroom with no working extractor and a window that never opens holds humidity, and mould will return to the grout and the ceiling as well as the joint. If that is what we find, you get told. **How much is it?** A bath or a shower is £95 including VAT, both together are £150, and a whole bathroom is £185. A kitchen worktop run is £95 on its own or £35 added to a bathroom booking. The silicone is in the price and there is no call out charge. **Do I need to be there?** Somebody needs to let us in, and it helps to be there at the end so you can look at the work before it is settled. The middle of the job does not need an audience. In a rented property access is arranged with the tenant directly. **White or clear silicone?** White on most baths and showers, because it reads as part of the sanitaryware and hides a slightly uneven tile edge. Clear on dark tiles, stone and most kitchen worktops, where a white line draws attention to itself. It is your choice, and it costs the same. **Do you cover my area?** Exeter and roughly twenty miles round it, which takes in the city districts, the estuary towns, the East and Mid Devon market towns and the Teign valley. The areas page lists everywhere covered. Just outside it, ask, and you will get a straight answer rather than a maybe. **Who turns up?** Sam Hembury or one of the Hembury Contracting team. Exeter Silicone Services is a service line of Hembury Contracting, an Exeter business, sole trader, VAT registered and insured for work in your home. **Is the silicone included in the price?** Yes, and so is taking the old joint out. There is no materials line, no call out charge and no charge for stripping out what somebody else left behind. The number on the card is the number you pay. **Is VAT included?** Yes. Every figure on this site includes VAT. Hembury Contracting is VAT registered, so £95 means £95, with nothing added afterwards. **What is the minimum charge?** £95. A single joint still means a van, a strip out, a clean down and a drying day, so a smaller job does not cost meaningfully less to do than a standard one. **When would it cost more than the card?** When the removal is unusually long: a bath sealed four times over, three different materials in one joint, or a fitting that has to come out to reach the joint at all. That runs at £60 an hour after the first hour, and you are told before the clock starts, not on the invoice. **Do you take a deposit?** Not on a standard reseal. It is payable on completion once you have looked at the work. Larger bookings and multiple properties for an agent are invoiced in the usual way. **Is it cheaper to do the bath and the shower together?** Yes. Separately they are £95 each; together they are £150. The saving is real rather than a discount: one visit, one set up and one drying day instead of two of each. ## Contact (https://exetersiliconeservices.co.uk/contact) Nobody is judging the bathroom. The worse the joint looks, the more useful the photograph is, because the only thing that changes the price is how much old material has to come out. What to send: Which fittings need doing, a photograph of the worst joint, and roughly how many times it has been sealed before if you know. A postcode helps with the slot. If it is a rented property, say so and give a contact for access. - Telephone: 07307 202508 - Email: info@hemburycontracting.co.uk - Booking hours: Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm, Saturday 9am to 4pm - Based: Exeter, Devon, EX2 area. - Trading identity: Hembury Contracting, https://hemburycontracting.co.uk