How to properly FILL CRACKS around Window Sills

really common maintenance job that were doing today today we are filling cracks and gaps around window sills hiya folks welcome back today I thought I would continue on the theme of cork that we were talking about last time cork if you don't know is like a flexible decorators filler and really common job that we've got today and that is to fill loads of gaps around window sills these are quite low down window sills here but it's a gap between the sill and the woodwork the skirting board or baseboard if you're in the state's really common problem this you're gonna have to fix in new build properties especially if it is a new build I would suggest that you leave it for a good two years for everything to dry out before you even attempt to fill all the cracks of the wise you will be going back and filling the cracks again later on it's not the sort of thing you should be reporting to the Builder or to the building company it's absolutely normal and it basically stems from the fact that as materials dry out in a very dry centrally heated house they shrink obviously if it's cracks that look more structural Anacin kind of 5 millimeter and above then you should probably be getting some professional help with that but for most cracks like this it's an easy DIY job to fix but there is a good way of going about doing this and there's a bad way of going about doing this and really actually I've probably got three different scenarios here that I'm going to show you between the gutter I've got around this side in the middle here and on that side as well it will be quite a messy job and because we're on carpet I'm definitely gonna put a duff sheet down let's crack on [Music] so as I say we've really got three different situations here we've got on this side this windowsill board has dried out and contracted and it's really contracted in that direction because you can see I mean it's pulled away from the paintwork by a good two or three millimeters all of this old cork needs to come out there's a lot of people would just bang in some like cork over the top of this but it's gonna be a really messy job because you've got all these ridges of paint that's just kind of flaking off and it wouldn't be a proper job so all this old cork really has to come out of this one over on this side this is the side that hasn't really moved but we do still have a bit of cracking just from basically a tiny bit of contraction of the sill and from the the baseboard as well but it's a tiny crack and it's a crack that it doesn't require all of the old cork to be ripped out I can just put some new cork over the top of that and fix that problem you can really tell by if you just run your finger down the gap you can feel whether or not you're gonna get away with just putting new cork over the top of it and on this side it'll be fine on this side though we've got a little bit of a step in the cork where the seal has actually contracted downward slightly and plus the baseboards contracted upwards and as a result we've got the painters kind of broken along that edge and we've probably now got a gap of about one millimeter between the bottom of the old cork and the window sill so along here the old cork is gonna have to come out and then along this edge here similarly the last one I just showed you but much more major cracking this one is mainly because the skirting here has contracted height wise this has contracted down a little bit as well it's contracted too much for it to just be the MDF I would say this probably some sort of wooden framework underneath this and that wooden framework has contracted a little bit as well so again on this side all of this old cork needs to come out I can't just caulk over the top of that it would be very noticeable so all I would say is with this type of job before you just plow on and fill every single gap with cork just spend five minutes working out what is the thing that shrunk what caused the crack to appear and is it likely to happen again in the future you know is there some sort of underlying problem that needs to be fixed before you even bother with this but this is just bog-standard new-build cracks this is actually a six year old new build so it's about time that this gets sorted I'm going to strip out all the old cork I'm also going to sand down the windowsill because this is going to get a fresh coat of paint as well and I'm going to do the sanding before I do the caulking [Music] [Music] so that's everything all cleaned up now all the dust hoovered out wiped down with a damp cloth and I've you know give it all a bit of a feel to see that there's no big ridges of paint or anything like that you wanted to feel as smooth as possible from square one if there's any opportunity to sand down you know little divots and lumps in the old paintwork now is here time you don't want to be doing any sanding once you've got wet cork in this gap and before you plow on and just fill this Cup with cork the first thing I would suggest just have a look at the gaps that you're dealing with here we've got a really small probably less than a millimeter gap under here so normal cork will be absolutely fine but over on the other side here we've got a gap of probably closer to three millimeters especially towards this end here and the thing is with normal cork it shrinks as it dries and with a big gap like that it makes it much harder to judge how much coke to apply so that when it shrinks it doesn't kind of shrink into the gap if that makes sense to what I'm going to do here is I'm going to backfill with a lighter cork I'm just going to use the nemesis that you probably saw on the cold tests that I've already done it's a much lighter weight cork and it doesn't shrink the only trouble is I've found it is more susceptible to cracking so all I'm going to do is I'm going to backfill with this and then put normal more flexible cork over the top [Music] [Music] I'm just switching over to a normal cork for the top coat I'm just using screw fix no-nonsense actually came out as one of the best in terms of not cracking after you've applied the paint straight after applying the cork I'm really forcing the cork down into the joint to leave only a very slightly radiused joint and then once the cork shrinks and dries that radius will literally just suck in and disappear and as I briefly mentioned before I'm just applying the no-nonsense over the top of the nemesis which I used as a backfill earlier on as I say the no-nonsense does shrink a lot you can use it for big gaps but you're just gonna have to contend with the fact that it'll probably shrink back into the gap that you're filling [Music] [Music] so you might think we've got too much of a radius here but I can promise you once this shrinks back wants to cork dries it'll be a really nice joint that we've got along here and really it's all down to the individual cork that you use you know you use a cork that you're comfortable with because they all shrink at slightly different rates and different ones apply in different ways you've seen the cork tests that I've already done have a look at that don't panic about which brand you use or anything like that most of them come out the same Factory anyway so I'm going to leave that for about half an hour just for the cork where are you hola I'm just for the cork to skim over a little bit while that's drying I'm just gonna have a bit of a tidy of Pierre I'm gonna mask off the carpet ready to do the priming and then we can crack on with the next bit [Music] so I gave the whole lot a coat of water-based acrylic primer undercoat you don't have to prime before painting but generally you are going to get a better finish if you do prime or or at least undercoat before doing your tough court and then again I'm using a water-based gloss for the top court I'm just using Johnstone's trade aqua system advanced technology water-based gloss you use whatever paints you're comfortable with at the end of the day I'm using a smaller brush just to get into the tighter areas and then a large brush for cutting in around the edges [Music] so they go folks all done and dusted there shouldn't be any more cracking in this overtime I mean as I say it six years old now it's done all of the expansion and contraction that it's gonna do over time if you do get any crazing or cracking in the cork then a quick coat of paint over the top of that normally sorts that out or you can even do a very very thin layer of cork over the top of it but with this kind of combo I've never had that problem a lot of it can be down the contraction of the substrates and at the end of the day cork can handle a certain amount of movement but nowhere near as much as stuff like silicon but you don't want to be using silicon for decorative repairs like this because you can't paint over the top of it couple of other quick tips don't use frog tape on the carpet I've ran out of normal masking tape and frog tape just doesn't stick to carpets so but it was all I had and make sure you've got enough masking tape also I do like the the Johnstone's water-based gloss and it doesn't seem too yellow anywhere near as much as oil-based paints but I have noticed on this tin and let's check the date on this tin to know her and find a date on it I can't find a date anywhere but to me this looks like it's yellowed slightly on the edge of the tin let me know where you are with water-based glosses I did do a test on this channel or a long time ago and I'm due to do another test on water-based glosses at the end of the day if the white water-based gloss still turns yellow kind of defeats the object have gone down water-based route as I say it's nowhere near as bad as oil-based and how quickly that turns yellow but there's a noticeable yellowing around the edge of the tin here so do let me know in the comments below what is your favorite water-based gloss at the minute because we will have a test Tuesday coming up on them I did get asked in the comments of the cork test video do you have to paint over or really cork is designed to be painted over you shouldn't really leave it unpainted it's not the end of the world it's just it's got a slightly rough texture to it and over time it will pick up dirt and grime the cork itself might yellow over time so it is really designed to be painted over there's plenty places in this new build where they haven't bothered to paint over the cork and it does look scruffy after a few years so in a nutshell no you don't have to paint over cork but you really should before I finish off quick bit of channel news I'm moving a lot of my non make air type videos off this channel and onto my second channel well under Maya and EEMA drums channel which is now just called and EEMA link in the description below much more audio related stuff and of course quite a bit of drumming related stuff on that channel as well but generally anything totally random and Bloggie vloggy type random videos are now going to be going on to that channel instead of on this channel so if you see videos disappearing from this channel they've probably been moved on to my Andy Matt drums channel because I even hoard YouTube videos thanks again for watching don't forget to hit subscribe if you're new to the channel I shall see you next time [Music]

Channel: Gosforth Handyman

Views: 647,536

Keywords: fixing cracks, home improvement, painting and decorating, cracks around windows, cracks around window sill, window sill crack repair, window sill cracks, how to fill window sill cracks, window sill gap filler, new build cracks, cracks in wall new building, fix cracks, how to fix cracks, cracks around window frame, cracks around door frames, cracks in new home, do it yourself, window sill, DIY, property maintenance, home maintenance

Id: ggvQcXnrWAY

Length: 15min 28sec (928 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 22 2019