NEVER Throw Away A Partially Used Dried Up Caulk Tube Again! How To Keep Them Like New

in this video I'm going to show you a number of ways that you can go about keeping your used caulk from getting too hard and therefore when you go to use it again it doesn't come out and ultimately you end up just throwing it in the trash costing you a bunch of money so let's go ahead and Jump Right In let's go now there are some home remedies that a lot of people use or have used over the years I've used some of them as well where once they get done using their tube they've got an open caulk tube the seal is broken so if air is introduced into the tube it's going to start drying out that caulk so what a lot of people will do is once they're done they will take a finishing nail or a nail of some sort that then fits into the tip of the tube and they'll just leave it like this for an amount of time usually way too long because doing it this way is typically going to yield you maybe a couple weeks maybe three weeks at most before it's going to start drying out here in the top another method that people will use in order to extend the life of their tube is they will use painters tape so what people will typically do is they'll take that painters tape they'll wrap it around the top of that caulk tube and then fold it down on top to try and create an airtight seal I have found that yes this is effective if you're planning on using this caulk tube again in The Fairly near future you may get up to around a week maybe two weeks at most before it's going to start drying up here in the tip so this is definitely not a long-term storage solution but now let's get into some products that are specifically made to keep these tubes from going bad and we're going to start off with this one right here now this one right here is called the caulk nozzle stopper well the way that this works is when you're done using your tube you will just take the stem of that push it down into the tube until you get to one of those ribs where it doesn't want to go down any further so this is the furthest rib that we're going to get to in this particular caulk gun just because of the size of the tip opening but we should have a fairly good seal all the way around now I have this other tube that I've had sitting around I have a much bigger hole on it so I was able to push this down into the tube a little bit further and this has been sitting around for a number of weeks so we're going to go ahead and see how well this is done as far as preserving the caulk so all we got to do is just go and pull that out as you can see this is still wet here so we know that we're going to have some good caulk to be able to be used out of this tube still it is a little bit dried up here at the top it's a little bit sticky so it was starting to set up here at the tip anyways so I'm going to use my no drip caulk gun which this caulk gun and all of these products that I'm going to show you in this video I'll have links for them down in the description down below or you can check out any of the ones that you may be interested in all right so this is a no drip caulk gun maybe you've never heard of these before this is one of the best ones that I've been able to find but the way that it works is when you go to put pressure and push the caulk out of the tube it does apply that pressure and we do have some caulk coming out but we don't get any dripping it doesn't continue to force it out out and that's because when I let off of the trigger that pressure that's built up it actually backs off just a little bit so we don't continue to have caulk running out of the tip of the tube all right so we've got some pretty pliable caulk here that came out but here at the tip I know you can't see it in the camera but I can feel it with my finger all the way from the top here to about right in here it's getting kind of hard so it was starting to set up inside of that tube but overall we were still able to use this again so I would say that these work fairly well especially if you're planning on using the tube again in the next one to three months all right so the next product we're going to take a look at is this right here this is called the caulk keeper and this is basically a cap but here in the middle we've got this little plastic piece that goes down into the tip of the tube and then we have a cone shape here where it's tapered down so once we go and insert that piece into the tube like so we'll take the rest of it we'll just kind of push it on and twist it on just a little bit just to try and get as airtight of a seal as possible but I've got another tube of caulk that's been sitting around for a number of weeks that is using one of these caught Keepers and we're going to see how well it performs so just go ahead and kind of have to twist it off a little bit again just going to insert this into my caulk gun and we'll go ahead and push some caulk out all right so that is coming out of there really good there is one dried spot I see right here in the caulk but overall this is still all very pliable very easy to use and pretty much exactly the way it was when I put the cap on so that is encouraging as I've had this on there a number of weeks maybe three or four weeks now hey really quickly if you're finding these tips to be interesting if you could do me a huge favor hit that thumbs up button right down below or leave me a question or comment down the comment section it really does help the video out to spread out to other people and hopefully be able to help them out with this as well I really appreciate it let's get back into it now the next one I'm going to show you is one of my favorites it's not my absolute favorite but it works extremely extremely well and that's this one right here well the reason I like this so much is a it's it's fairly inexpensive and it's incredibly easy to use on top of it when you go and insert it into the tube you really have to work this rubber down onto the top of this tube and pulling it down as far as you can now this is extremely tight now up along the tip of this caulk tube now and we have a very airtight seal we have that rod that's going down inside of the tip so that's going to help with keeping things from drying out but to show you just how well these work I've had this one sitting around for around a month and I've also got some silicone here now this is acrylic and this is silicone and this is going to show you just how well this works because I'm in a Southern Climate it's very humid here and silicone will set up a lot faster when there's moisture in the air or even if you were to pour water on it it starts to cure out the silicone so we'll start with the acrylic tube and it's going to be a little bit difficult to pull off just because of how tight that rubber is on the top of this tube but we can see that we've got some nice wet caulk right there and look at that comes out just like it did when we first cut the tip and broke the seal on the caulk tube but let's remove the acrylic let's go ahead and insert the silicone caulk tube and go to remove this that one actually came off a little bit easier but hopefully as you can see it is still extremely wet so we should get good caulk coming out of this silicone tube as well and yep it's exactly like when we first cut the tip off and broke the seal on the tube so again these are some of my absolute favorite devices to use for the caulk tubes because it does create that airtight seal and I'm able to keep these tubes for a number of months before they even start to start curing in the very tip all right so this next product is probably the most expensive one that I'm going to show you and that's this one here that's made by airtight this thing will keep a tube of caulk good for an extremely long amount of time I've got a tube of silicone caulk inside of here and it's been in here for quite a while so let me show you how this works so we're just going to unscrew the top here now we're able to pull the tube out and before we test that I'll just set that right up there so in the bottom there is a piece of rubber and that's creating an airtight seal at the bottom of the tube and of course the rest is all plastic here on the top piece if we look up here in the top piece you'll see there's another rubber piece up there in the top which again is going to create that nice airtight seal but if we look if you can see right through that plastic right there there's also a piece of plastic that goes down into the top of the tube of the caulk just like a lot of the other things that I've showed you already in this video so now you know how it works now let's test this tube of silicone and it is coming out just as it did when we first cut it open a nice liquidy consistency and I see Zero signs of any of it setting up at all so again this was sitting inside of this airtight product for a number of months and it is just as though it is brand new all right so my go-to product and something that I've been using now for I don't know I bought these over a year ago and they work extremely extremely well and that is this right here and I don't know how to describe this any other way these are called caps but I call them caulk condoms because that's exactly how they work so when I get done using a tube of caulk I will leave it in the caulk gun with these and I will take one of these condoms and I will just put it over the tip and then we just roll it down the top of this tube until it goes all the way down towards the bottom and we want to make sure we got a nice airtight seal and so it's just as easy as that it just slides right down the tip of this tube and now your tube has protections and these are my go-to I bought a hundred of these for I think like 12 or 14 dollars so I've got a hundred of these that I can put on multiple tubes and again I've been using these for at least a year now they have allowed my tubes to last for many many months without any curing whatsoever and that goes for the acrylic and I've got this tube of silicone this one has been on here for I think three or four months now so when we want to go to use it all we do is we just roll that cap off put that silicone tube in and as you can see it's running out of there with the exact consistency as it does as soon as you cut open one of these caulk tubes there are zero chunks zero signs of drying and so again that's why these are my go-to because they work so dang well and they're so incredibly inexpensive but don't go anywhere yet because I'm betting the majority of you have tubes like this one that when it's inserted into a caulk gun and you go to pull the trigger nothing comes out you can't push the plug out of the top and that's because it's set around for way too long and it's cured out all the way up in this nozzle so what do the majority of people do well a lot of people will just take this and throw it in the trash and they lose a lot of product just by doing that now someone that doesn't want to go out and just buy new tubes typically what they'll do is they'll start cutting down this nozzle trying to find where the end of the plug is or to where they can pull the plug out well the problem with this is the more you go down this nozzle it's tapered so the bigger the hole gets it's and if you're doing something like baseboards or something that requires nice tight caulk lines then having a giant hole is not ideal also there's been plenty of times where I've cut it all the way down to where it's just a nub and I still have not got too fresh caulk so instead of going through all of that or just wasting a bunch of tubes of caulk let me show you a product that will take care of all of that and that's this one right here this is called tuba new I'm going to show you just how quick and easy this is to use in order to get those nice tight caulk lines and not waste any of the product that you already have on hand so I'm going to want to take the tip of the two Manu put it in the hole that's on the side of my caulk gun here this is where you can cut the tip off of your tubes and now I've got the tip cut off and I've got an opening made then I'm going to take that caulk tube that I'm having issues with set it down then I'm going to take a box cutter or a razor blade and I'm just going to cut all the way around the top of this caulk tube and just open it up like I would a can so now I've got that top removed and I've got a little bit of wet product but it's also drying out over here so no matter how much I would have cut this back I would have never gotten to a place where I would have been able to use this nozzle to push any of this remaining product lift and this is full starting from all the way down here all the way up to here so that's a lot of product so I'm just going to take my tube that I just cut open take my tuba new I'm just going to slide that on there and it fits on there nice and tight now I can take my tube put it into the caulk gun it is kind of a tight fit but it will go in now I can pull the trigger and start applying caulk and just like that as you can see it's coming out of there with a really nice liquidy consistency there's no chunks it's coming out of there just like it did when we first opened the tube of caulk I who is someone who worked in an industry for over a decade where we use these on a regular basis and we also ran into this issue on a regular basis these are something that I highly recommend and have saved me a bunch of money and of course I can't forget to use my caulk condom now if you found this video to be interesting I'll post a link to a video right up here that's going to go over some steps that are really important when making repairs or installs around the house so I hope you found this to be interesting and if you did if you could do me a huge favor hit that thumbs up button right down below and of course if you have any questions or comments still you can leave those down in the comment section and I'll catch you all in the next one see ya

Channel: How To Home

Views: 113,632

Keywords: How to preserve caulk tubes, how to keep caulk good, how to store caulk, caulk caps, caulk tube tips, caulk storage tips, how to keep caulk from going bad, How to use caulk, ways to keep caulk from going bad, ways to keep caulk tubes good, how to keep caulk tube from drying out

Id: omSf7x-hyw4

Length: 13min 20sec (800 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 10 2023