The Ultimate Caulking Guide | What Caulk to Use?

hi Jeff from home renovation here and today we are talking everything to do with stuff that comes in tubes let's face it if you're like me you've been to the hardware store and in my early days I was a little intimidated there is an entire aisle at the hardware store dedicated to stuff in tubes and there's so many choices it's hard to understand you know what's the right stuff for me what are you there for I'm gonna guarantee you right now there is something put in a tube for every situation that you're gonna run into the secret to navigating that aisle is to understand the products and the choices so that you can pick the product that's perfect for your job so today in this middle video we're going to go through a bunch of different options that are out there so to help you understand and at least give you the ability to ask the right question so when you're in the store next time shopping for what you need you'll be able to get the exact product for your situation so break this down nice and simple and we're gonna start with building stuff right when you're building things you need adhesives you can't just use whatever tube is around because different products respond to different materials differently so let's go through this really quick and simple this one is the code 300 all right now in Canada here we have a company called the posh and they're brilliant they're not available in the States this information although it's not exactly the same as where you might live or overseas the same concepts exist in every building material so none of this this is what's called a foam board adhesive okay now this is like for everybody who's building a basement who wants to put that rigid foam board insulation up against their concrete wall you can buy a tube of this and you can run a couple of thick beads on it lay it up against your concrete surface and it'll bond the two materials together so it's not falling over the place while you're working the formulation in this adhesive will not melt the foam board but rather will bond it to a concrete surface and that's why that is very valuable and a must-have if that's the project that you're working on it's a lot easier to work with than using nails the next one is PL 400 this is subfloor and decking material construction adhesive now this is not an exterior product this is for interior use nowadays and we're building we're using engineered floor joists and 5/8 tongue and groove subfloor material this is designed to go on the floor joists to lay the subfloor into and it bonds it all together so you don't get those creaky floors this is something that's new in the building code in recent history and so this is amazing and if you're in the trades do me a favor stop using traditional construction adhesive at a higher grade level for that because whenever we come along and try to renovate it rips the living tar out of everything that you guys touch so use the 400 appreciate it thank you now next one is 600 this one oh the landscape block now again maybe I should just save this now there are five of their quality grades of the same construction material now they formulated this for landscaping block because it's an exterior product okay this will bond two pieces of stone together even in cold climates right up to minus 30 degrees and that's in the American scale which is crazy this is an awesome material alright the next one up the run is the same building material with a different formulation number 700 this is very unique in the fact that this is an adhesive that's designed you ever got one of those uh tub surrounds all right then the polystyrene it's not acrylic or it's not plastic it's polystyrene and that needs a specific adhesive this stuff you put on the wall you press your tub surround up against it and then you peel it right off again and when you do that it stretches it out and the air that goes mixes in with that it gives very very alcohol smelly okay and you give it about five or ten minutes and then you push the board back on that actually sets up the chemical reaction and this bonds incredibly well alright this is an awesome product next on the list is the 9000 now this is heavy duty all right this is a construction adhesive this is the all-purpose construction adhesive alright for attaching wood to metal the concrete and any combination thereof this one here is what they call a traditional construction adhesive and here's why all the products below this that are in the hundreds okay all of these products can be cleaned up using mineral spirits or virus all this one can't be all right when this touches something it's there for life once it's dry you can't clean it off so all of these products have been developed for use inside the house specifically so that if you have gets on your hands or on your shoes and you walk through the floor you can clean it up without damaging the home from here on in all of these products if you get it on let's say your shoe and you walk through somebody's house and you get it on their hardwood and nobody notices the next day you go oh there's something on the floor no the floor is garbage you're not getting it off your clients gonna be unhappy if you're a homeowner you're gonna be mad at yourself so if you're working indoors and you can solve your problem with one of these products I suggest you use them all right because that can be cleaned this is a great is awesome strength right but again it won't be clean and if it can't be cleaned it means it won't be washed away it's completely water-resistant Piell premium this is the this is the gold standard right everybody's been using this for years if you're attaching wood to wood this stuff is incredibly strong when you watch the construction shows these talk about gluing and screwing this is what they're referring to this is the gold standard in construction gluing and screwing okay and of course they're never satisfied making something great they want to make it better this one is 308 times stronger Wow this one is three times stronger than the 9000 this one is eight times stronger than the 9000 I'm not sure when you'd need something eight times stronger than the 9000 but hey if you want to spend an extra buck a tube for something even better go write a hit and then of course why stop there maybe people like to spend $3 a tube more if you need this you're going into outer space I'm telling you right now I don't know why this products even made to me it's just overkill it's sexy it's great and if you don't know what you're doing and you're in the store you're just going to buy the most expensive one because it's gonna work trust me this $6 works you don't need to spend the twelve but hey Who am I to judge alright that's the construction adhesive world let's move on to the next level of construction you've got a built you've insulated the next product you need is when you're doing your vapor barrier it's an acoustic sealant the word acoustic is very confusing most people if this said vapor barrier sealant it would make more sense but the truth is when we're using this on our plastic vapor barrier inside the house we're using it for air control we're using it for air control because slowing down the ability of air to move through a well is how you make it sound proof so that's an acoustic ceiling this stuff goes on it's black it's like tar it doesn't wash off it doesn't dry if you get this on you or your clothes you're gonna be wearing it for a week until your skin replaces itself that's just the way it works so be careful when you will use it when this stuff maybe wear some nitrile gloves if you can even find them oh yeah and if you want to see how we use this product we'll put a link to the video we actually put a project together a little video about how to install your vapor barrier and seal it up to get a good air seal on the inside your house if that's what you're fixing that's a great video now now that we've got everything sealed up in our walls Ron the next thing to talk about is attaching baseboard and trim work right no more nails is an awesome product this is basically a construction adhesive design for wood trim to be attached to a primed or painted surface so if you want to put on your trim you can use a beat of this stick your wood on the wall the odd nail for fastening and it greatly reduces the amount of work it takes to put in your trim because now you don't have 200 nano holes on the baseboard you've got one two or three so it's a great time-saver and it's pretty cost effective relative amount of time that you save on this project next one is the workhorse Alex plus now this is not Alex Plus this is a door and window 100% acrylic with a silicon additive so that it's flexible okay so it doesn't crack this has done use this on all your trim all your transition from wood to drywall round doors around windows around baseboards casings anything like that where you have a paintable surface this is ideal if you use a silicone instead of a water-based caulking for doing around your wood trim then you're also gonna have to take the extra step and prime that with a flat oil aerosol spray that's unnecessary you can use this and get a great result it's the gold standard in acrylic Hawkings now one thing that all of these tubes so far have had in common is they all use the same size cocking gun now this is the kind of cocking gun I use it's a professional-grade trust me don't buy the cheap crap when you're gonna buy a cocking gun buy something this heavy-duty like this it's still less than ten bucks okay and the idea is you compress your thumb you retract that and you can install your tube and then you squeeze the gun to make it come out alright now before you can do that of course you need to cut the tip off you can use a knife or you can use the cutter that comes in the tool a good cocking gun gives you the ability to cut the end off alright and press that at the end it stops coming out okay great brilliant little tool it comes in really handy so that you're not having this hosing all over the floor as you're working and I'm gonna make this mention to anything that's an acrylic tube okay just have to cut the end and you can go all these other things okay I'll show you this one for instance this is the 304 foamboard will cut this and when you're doing that try to put a bit of an angle on it all right now max I don't know if you can see in there okay there's a tin foil cover just sealed up so I can put this in the tube and nothing comes out alright what ends up happening if you push too much it'll squeeze out the back end and make a Messier gun on the handle it comes with this little rod alright and that is designed to puncture the seal and allow your material to come out all right and I mean y'all if you go the races now there are lots of different tools and materials out there that you can use so that you can seal up the end I like to use a screw there's always a screw around on the jobsite you can screw it right in and you're good to go now there are two sides of cocking gun this is the standard okay all of these are 300 mil whatever size that is in whatever country we're in there's a small when there's a large there is a gun that carries this kind of cocking size all right this is more for commercial use this is the green glue that we use in our videos for more sound proof in-between drywall layers and if you'd like to see a soundproofing video on how to do your job you can click the link up here but this stuff is amazing and it actually absorbs a lot of the sound but you need a bigger gun for that one they're for sale in the same aisle right next to these ones so when you are shopping make sure you get the right size for the product you're buying so before we get into silicones all right on this side I'm just going to go through a few more different cocking options that are on the market now this is called a quad this is an exterior sealant that's not a silicone this is more of a water-based product but it's formulated so it's quick-drying it's paintable within an hour you can use it in all kinds of weather and you'll take a look on the back here all this description and it'll actually label out how long until you can paint can what temperature variations you can install it in a lot of these you know advanced products you can install below zero alright or if it's crazy hot it still works so you want to make sure that you're not just picking the right product for the job that you're doing but the right technology at the right time of year for what you're doing it's another consideration because you might have to pay a little bit more if it's really cold or really hot but it'll perform better than a traditional product of the same product line so make sure you check that information out it's worth it to invest in a caulking that will perform in the same weather now this is different here this is more advanced technology these cocking 's have the tubes that come off the top and you slice the top open okay and you can put this back on you can buy extra tubes that would fit on the end alright so you can use the cocking take off the tube put it away and just tape up the end and you're ready to use it the next time you can put brand new to bond so you always have that nice small gap at the end here this is ideal for when you want to have a lot of control you can't just keep cutting and cutting and cutting because the coal getting whole gets bigger and bigger and bigger so having the ability to use this one day and then get a new tube tip and thread it on the end is worth money in the bank this product here is a roofing sealant it's designed for roof shingles it comes in a variety of colors black is the most common of course but in today's age of architectural shingles you can get a roofing ashphalt sealant and just about any color on the market may not be available at your building store but if you go down to the local roofing store they'll have a little showroom and you can get the color that you need alright this is awesome so that if you add a plumbing vent or if you've got a small leak somewhere you can just put your garden hose on your roof identify your leak and you can go use something like this to seal it up great product nice to have sitting around be careful as well most of these products if they freeze become garbage so don't store them in your garage if you're in a northern climate don't store them in your garage if you're too far south because if they get too hot they also deteriorate so you want to keep these in a nice cool dry place now this one is French ah this is the product for everybody who's been calling in and sending message I've got a crack in my concrete what do I do right here this is a concrete sealant it's kind of um it's like a like a floor leveler for concrete cracks it comes in a caulking tube I'm curious to see how this one performs we've got to cut it but I got a puncture oh there we go I've got the cardboard here let's see how this performs compared to the other copies okay so it claims that you don't have to tool it you just put it in yeah self-leveling no tooling required so let's leave that for a few minutes and we'll see how well that works you can see it's already flattening out that's pretty cool the next one is for gutters eavestrough flashing all that kind of stuff the exterior of your home you can use this product and it has a waterproof seal that's almost immediate so you can be working and attaching and if you got inclement weather and it's giving you a little bit of rain now and again even while you're doing your eaves troughs and gutters this product will solve your day you can assemble it and put it together and it can start raining right away and it's not going to affect the performance over the lifetime great product to have sometimes silicon has got a disadvantage of it has to be completely weather friendly both temperature and how dry it is products like this are formulated they're solve problems so you can work year-round there is one other product that we should talk about since we're talking about construction to pieces and sealants and that is the idea of purchasing one of these guns all right now this is an expansion foam but you can also buy the subfloor adhesives in this kind of a situation so you don't have cocking guns on the job so you can have one of these and the way they work is you couldn't open up the end all right and then you can let the foam out and you can have a lot of control if you want just a filling a little gap okay you can close it up and you're good to go now if it gets old you can open it up here we go and you'll see it'll be a little bit nasty I'm talking about the gun you can see it can be a little bit nasty and the great stuff company also has a spray that goes with it and this is just a solvent spray and it melts that that garbage right off okay so that if you have an issue you can clean it up you can also take off the tip all right and you can thread it right on to the gun you can open it up and you can clean it there we go and you can see that that that that just dissolves that stuff really nicely all right it's a great way to maintain your equipment there we go okay so having a gun like that is it's really a great investment because this holds a lot more material in it one of these cans will do let's say 15 windows where the little mini can that you can buy for individual use will only do two so although they're almost the same size this is pressurized to a much greater degree so it really gives you great value now let's get on to the silicones because silicones are awesome and they come in a variety of different qualities now so this is an exterior door and window silicone product and if you're using it to seal up around the outside of your house you can use a silicone like I said make sure it's dry make sure the temperature is right this is a pretty basic product it's on the lower end of the quality scale but since it is silicone if it's applied in the right environment it'll perform well I think the consideration here is you have to make sure you never use this product indoors resist the temptation with this one as well the quad when you're looking at your products check is it rated for interior or exterior exterior products in a lot of cases have incredibly violent off gases and if you use them inside a house you read this and go wow it's waterproof I can do all these things it's gonna stretch this is a perfect thing for around my tub you're gonna put it in there and you won't be able to use your bathroom for a month if you leave the window open okay it's just really violent it'll make you sick to your stomach just walking in the room these are designed for outdoors where there's lots of open space the wind is blowing and no one's smelling anything all right be careful with that now then we have the interior silicone again it's a different formulation it's not going to smell it's designed to be in the house very low VOCs and this is a very introductory product and you'll see it makes all kinds of claims how long it takes to dry how flexible it is so it says 100% silicone and you think wow there's a great product but this is just the introductory in the quality of silicone don't buy into it too quick okay they also have the next level of silicone and this has got a little something on here is called cured silicone this stuff smells a more pungent more vinegary and I always say if you want to know if you got a good silicon if it doesn't smell like vinegar you bought something cheap all right now that's not crazy off gases it's a great indication you've got a cured silicon and so that is my preference whenever I'm doing silicon inside the house this is great for kitchen and bath anywhere where you're using tile inside a house you're supposed to have a silicon joint from any surface tile the tile or tile to other material walls backsplashes cabinets you should have a thin joint of this stuff that won't crack and will keep everything looking clean and tidy and professional okay so here's the next product line up this has got an additive in it called micro band all right this is an antimicrobial which is an anti mold product it's shot right into the silicone as part of the mix and this is ideal for bathrooms in most situations because it will not just keep it sealed and looking pretty but it will help to protect you from the growth of mold if your water gets in behind your tile and let's face it if you have the wrong kind of substrate or you're not waterproofing behind your tile water will get behind there and sooner or later the mold that's existing in the wood will work its way out and find the water and this will help to keep it from becoming a problem it's not a solution to the mold problem but it will help to extend the life of the silicone without it going black and ugly don't expect this to perform for you if you've already got a mold problem in your bathroom okay don't go ripping up the old silicone putting this thing in thinking you've solved your problem that is a lie if you have mold in your bathroom you need to start all over okay and this is awesome this is the kit for all of the people out there who are going to be installing polystyrene tub you can buy a kit and it comes with three two tubs of the adhesive for the wall panels and it also comes with one tub of the sealing bond and we're gonna have to show you the old-fashioned way hmm I didn't want to open this because I am going to be making a video soon installing one of these bathrooms five piece polystyrene tub surround because I think that they're brilliant for a lot of people in Auto price ranges it out performs your own ability to do a tile job and it gives you shelves and something waterproof this is it it's a two-in-one polystyrene tub surrounds are very challenging because a silicone doesn't bond to it water-based sealants don't bond to it unless it's got a special formulation so if you have a polystyrene tub surround when you're going to buy the sealant for it make sure you ask for the proper product don't just go in there and go all Rambo and try to figure it out on your own okay there's only one product in the Shelf that will seal that stuff and it usually comes in the kit quality adhesive for the panels as well so be smart buy it right the first time buy it in the kit you'll even save a few bucks now if you run into a trouble and you've made a mistake and you use the silicone somewhere where you want to paint that's okay go back to the hardware store and pick one of these up this is a can of an oil-based aerosol spray paint all right and I made a video and I showed you the secret but it goes on white with a little bit of a yellow tinge but you can spray this on and then within the next five minutes you can actually come back with your paint and paint right over top of silicone and it's not gonna make that nasty mess where this guy gets trying to run away from the silicone okay so if you've used the wrong product this will be your salvation but I throw that in that's a great tip to help people out there is one more product here that I don't have here today that I want to talk about and that is called polyurethane caulking okay now the polyurethane is an oil-based product but it is incredibly strong technology it's the same kind of technology the use of hardwood floor finishing okay and they actually make it in an in a cocking now so on your exterior products like around your doors and your windows and your sheds now this stuff is tricky you can't touch it once you apply it you can't touch it so when you're working with that stuff all right you really want to I'm gonna use the cheap stuff because I'll never use that in my house you want to cut it on a 45 degree angle all right and that's how you want to apply it and I'll even demonstrate why not we're already here talking about it so this polyurethane cocking once you apply it you don't want to touch it you want to let it dry and then you can paint right over top of it and it will seal any two materials that you're using outside together and be ready for paint for the next day all right now when you cut on an angle you can also apply here comes a thin bead okay you can go thick if you want all right but in between two surfaces let me just show you this little gap here on an angle like that you can actually pull it away from it and it'll fill the gap really perfectly okay and you don't need to touch it on an exterior project filling a gap like that is the perfect way to do it and then enough material moves around over time it'll just keep on stretching and moving back and forth even in the dry condition and you can paint that stuff and it makes things looks amazing because you can cut in trim and wall colors and do different things and if you like to see an example of that you can check out our shed project where we use that on all of the wood trim and framing to seal up the entire shed so it's completely waterproof even right to the concrete slab and that was an amazing way of using that caulking to solve all kinds of problems again it's a little more expensive but it is a miracle worker all right so if you're not sure what to use and your working outdoors poly urethane is amazing the silicone gives you more workability all right inside make sure that you're using a cured silicone and low vo C and make sure that you're using the right construction adhesive and remember for every situation you need an adhesive or a sealant there is the right product that's been designed just for that use you don't have to get creative don't be afraid to spend another five or six bucks get the right project for your job so it's perfect every time now check this out you think all caulking is the same there's the first one look at the self level or it really flattened out okay so what I would suggest is you fill all your gaps and cracks to about 75 to 80% and then let the ridge flatten them I think that's an amazing product and if you've got cracks in your garage floor or something like that that would solve your problem and then you can be free to go and grab some epoxy paint and give yourself a fresh paint job and now to leave an expanding attract a little bit with a little bit of movement that you're gonna find in that crack that's awesome all right well hopefully that took a lot of the mystery and the fear out of buying the products remember it's okay to ask for help when you're shopping in the store but know that everything that you need there is a specific product exactly designed to solve your problem don't get creative this is renovation business is a hundred and sixty billion dollars a year and Home Depot and Lowe's alone so trust me the companies that supply them are making products to solve every single problem you can find yourself in all right thanks a lot for joining us today don't forget to click the link here and you can check out other videos that we have in a playlist like my favorite tools and the difference between different kinds of expansion foams and all kinds of wonderful tips and tricks that will help your shopping experiences be more productive see you next time

Channel: Home RenoVision DIY

Views: 303,576

Keywords: homerenovision, renovision, diy, caulk, caulking, home improvement, diy renovation, how to choose the right caulk, how to select the right caulk, all about caulking, what caulk should i use, choosing the right caulk, everything you need to know about caulking, caulk buying guide, what caulk do i buy, selecting the right caulk, which caulk to choose, The Ultimate Caulking Guide, What Caulk to Use?, how to caulk, caulking 101, caulking tutorial, caulk a window, caulk your house

Id: wZhGA-zrN_U

Length: 27min 0sec (1620 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 14 2020