I’ve discovered a fairly major leak every time we have a shower or the kids have a bath. It transpires the seal around the bath is useless, so i’ve had to remove the bottom row of tiles, with a view to re-sealing around the bath then re-tiling.

Now, when I originally tiled, i used a tile strip where the tiles sit inside it and it overlaps up behind and against the wall. I forgot to fill the bath when sealing it, and I think this might have caused the issue as the the water seems to have got under the tile strip and rotted the silicon.

So, do I re-tile using a strip again or not?

Those strips are worse than useless! a site I tiled once specced them and wondered why they got a lot of call backs for leaks.

I seal the bath to the wall with silicone sealant then tile, then seal with silicone again. use a good quality silicone such as Dow Corning and it’ll last a long time without leaking. If the bath is very flexible than it’s worth filling with water before sealing to weight it, don’t get the edges wet though as silicone won’t stick to anything wet.

What he said.

Also make sure you get every last bit of silicone out and clean thoroughly with a bleach solution. Make sure to rinse well and dry with tissue then a hair dryer. Use dow 785 or mapei silicon. Both available in screwfix probably b and q too. Don’t use anything else

As above it,s got to be a good quality silicone and not a cheapie from wickes, b and q and so on

Sika is another good make for silicone.

Make sure you have a palette knife ready to apply the silicone with 🙂

Or Tremco silicone

p.s. go for non acetoxy silicone if you can. The acetoxy stuff stinks for days.

Getting a decent seal starts with fitting the bath in the first place, especially if its to be stood in for showering.
Sit the lip of the bath on a batten fixed firmly to the wall(s), but make sure to adjust the normal feet so its sitting evenly on all the supports. Also, sit the feet on boards to spread the load more.
Before pushing the bath into place, run a bead of sealant around the edge, then seal the join before tiling. It can be a pain if the bath has to come out, but you shouldnt get a problem with leaks. Then just tile to within 5mm or so of the bath & seal neatly. One of them 90degree jointing tools with a nice smooth radius does a great job. Dont forget to smear the tool with washing up liquid, it stops the silicon dragging too much.
We paid a lot of money for our ‘P’ bath, but it is strengthened underneath the bit where you stand. Consequently it doesnt flex much. Cheap, flexy baths seam to be worse.
Them sealing strips are simply shite.

One of them 90degree jointing tools with a nice smooth radius does a great job

Haha, most people have a set of eight of these already, their called fingertips! wet your fingertip and the smooth out, no need to buy anything.

Oh you want to tile a damn site closer than 5mm to the bath also, but DON’T let the tiles sit tight on the bath, you want a mm or 2 gap between the tiles and rim of bath, this gives something for the silicone to push into.

Tile trim is not designed to be used between tiles and baths, it is really for using on the edge of tiled areas where your tiles don’t have a glazed edge.

There is some good advice in this thread. The only thing I’ll add as a tip is to dip your finger in a solution of shampoo and water immediately after you have applied the silicone, then run your finger along the bead – the shampoo will prevent the silicone from sticking to your fingers and give you a much better finish – don’t go anywhere near it with a pallette knife!

The fitter who put silicone around our bath showed me a really good trick. First he squeezed a bead of silicone around the edges, then – wait for it – he sprayed all along it with WD40. Then he run his finger all around it. Because of the WD40, it didn’t stick to anything else and it was left with a really neat job, which has remained perfect ever since and no leaks. I very much doubt whether I could replicate it but it looked easy and straightforward enough.

It’s a P bath and strengthened; it’s currently full of water and hasn’t moved a bit, as far as I can see. Even with me tottering on the edge it’s hardly moves.

Anyway, I’ve cleaned the old stuff out, though I can’t get right down the back (all the visible stuf is gone), a it’s been scrubbed clean, and it’s now being left until the morning when I’ll apply the silicon between the bath and wall. That then takes another 24 hrs to set and then I’ll have a look at starting the tile.

Because my tiles are a few years old I can’t get any of the same batch, and don’t have enough spares to do this bit. I’ve decided on a mosaic around the bath to make it a bit of a feature; are there any issues I should be aware of using these?

mildred – Member

It’s a P bath and strengthened; it’s currently full of water and hasn’t moved a bit, as far as I can see. Even with me tottering on the edge it’s hardly moves.

Anyway, I’ve cleaned the old stuff out, though I can’t get right down the back (all the visible stuf is gone), a it’s been scrubbed clean, and it’s now being left until the morning when I’ll apply the silicon between the bath and wall. That then takes another 24 hrs to set and then I’ll have a look at starting the tile.

Because my tiles are a few years old I can’t get any of the same batch, and don’t have enough spares to do this bit. I’ve decided on a mosaic around the bath to make it a bit of a feature; are there any issues I should be aware of using these?

Just try and make sure they are the same thickness as the other tiles

You don’t need to let the silicone set before tiling either, just get on with it straight away. It will still set just fine, will skin over in about 20-30 mins for sanitary stuff. I use silversil for sealing the bath to the wall, it’s exterior stuff for windows and sets fully in less than an hour. Don’t use it for anything on show though, it’ll go mouldy

That’s good to know – all my rest days seem to be vanishing in a DIY nightmare!!!

Mosaics, You sure about that??

If you must however, As mentioned above try and get some the same thickness as your existing tiles, it’s quite difficult without a few tricks of the trade to pack out mosaics to match existing tiling.

They will come on a sheet held together with a mesh, you’ll want to try and set them out so that you don’t need to cut individual tiles as this is very time consuming and generally looks a bit crap, especially if they’re glass mosaics. If you need to cut the sheet, run a Stanley knife through from the rear.

If glass/stone you’ll need a white adhesive, pref cement based (I use PCI Nanolight), and use a flat bed so that you don’t see the ridge lines through the tiles once dried.

Apply adhesive, lay in a sheet of mosaic and then I use a grout float to pat them in, this spreads the load rather than pushing them on by hand which can make the individual pieces of tile go crooked.

Let them dry out fully before grouting, if their glass they won’t suck up any of the moisture out of the adhesive which increases drying time, this is the primary reason for using cement based adhesive as it sets with a chemical reaction rather than drying out.

Use a wide joint grout as std grout can get pulled out of the joint as you was it off leaving the joints not as full as they should be. after washing, leave it to dry overnight then polish with a DRY Microfibre cloth.

Any more questions?

If you must however, As mentioned above try and get some the same thickness as your existing tiles, it’s quite difficult without a few tricks of the trade to pack out mosaics to match existing tiling.

Buy a m2 of ditra matting if they’re thin ceramic mosaics. It’s usually used to allow for lateral movement on floors etc. but we sell it to our traders who pack thin mosaics out with it too, plus it’s waterproof. If not most of the glass or stone mosaics we sell now are either the same thickness or a mm thicker than the tiles most of the time.

Ditra mat is pretty thick for that application though?? 3-4mm I reckon? and £10+ PM2. not a bad idea though… If packing out required I normally just bash on some very thin but cheap tiles, £3pm2, and then overtile on those.

This is brilliant – thanks for the advice all.

I’ve gone down the mosaic route because I can’t get hold of the same tiles as I originally used, and due to a (ahem!) “miscalculation” when I originally tiled i used them to fill the gap between the sink and window sill, so would actually match in quite nicely as a bit of a feature. The whole room is bright white bumpy tiles and needs something to break up the sheer painful glare of full-on white out!

When I orginally did the bathroom the only old tiles I removed were those around the bath so that I could remove the old one (very small bathroom). Trying to remove the others just resulted in substantial damage to the plaster board wall; My last house was built in 1862 and these sorts of thing weren’t an issue, but stud partitions were completely new to me.

Anyway, I over-tiled the rest of it but because of the consequent gap around the bath (1st set of tiles + adhesive + new tiles + adhesive), I used some cheap tiles to pack it out to a more acceptable level before putting the nice ones over the top.

How big a gap do you reckon I should leave between the bottom edge of the tiles and the bath rim? I have a slight fluctuation of about 4mm all round, and my aims is to not have to try shaving the glass mosaics (if thats even possible??).

Again thanks to all the replies, its all good.

Ah, I see blazing has already answered this.

Thanks
Mark