While we have previously discussed the choices and manner of caulking, recent projects make me think it is important to stress the issue!

In recent weeks, I have had to do projects that were not our standard fare, which is typically entire bathroom remodeling, changing tubs to showers and replacing leaky shower pans and rebuilding the shower. One such project is a very nice home on the Island of Palm Beach. The owner contacted our offices with a recaulking job. I suggested he contact a handy man, as it seemed unlikely to justify a Certified Residential Contractor, but he explained a handy man had triggered his need to contact us. The handy man, as a favor, while doing some minor work elsewhere, decided to recaulk a black spot in the master shower. he used white caulk, and slathered it on, over the blackened grout. The original grout was a sandy colored grout, so now the homeowner had a jarring splotch of white, edged with black, in the middle of his otherwise cream colored shower!

While I was there, he also had me look at a plaster wall in a hallway that backed up to the shower. The plaster was swollen and mishapened. We agreed to clean and recaulk the shower with an appropriate shade of sanded caulk. (you can find some shades of grout matching color caulk, both sanded and unsanded at Home Improvement stores, but you will find a more complete selection at fine tile stores like D&B Tile). We also agreed to open the hall wall, and diagnose the problem, both the homeowner and I thought there might be a plumbing leak or that a nearby niche might be allowing for water penetration, or both.

When we opened the wall, we found that the people who had rebuilt the shower a few years ago had used a very poor construction method of building the niche in the shower wall. you could literally stick a finger through the gaps at the corner of the wall board! The tilesetter had covered the gaps with tile, and grouted the joints, so from the shower side, the niche looked solid and sealed. Water had been leaking through the grout, which had cracked as it was supported only by thin air! This leak had been an ongoing, many year leak, and had rotted away part of the framing for the niche.

As the homeowner wanted to do a good repair, but was not yet ready to do a complete shower rebuild, we replaced the rotten wood, and sealed the back side of the niche with fiberglass tape and lots of caulk. Then the closed up the wall and cleaned and recaulked the inside of the shower. This should keep his shower water in the shower for the next several years, though we will return annually to check and maintain the caulking, as needed. The moral to this story is that, if the niche had been built and sealed properly to begin with, it would have likely never leaked. if the leak had never occured, the black spot would quite possibly have never developed, and the homeowner would not have spent in excess of $1000.00 to save his shower and the adjoining walls and framing!

Today, I visited with a homeowner in North Palm Beach who was having an “outside the shower” leak. He had tested it himself, and made a pretty good diagnosis. Five years ago, when his home was built, the tilesetter had not bothered to caulk the shower prior to the shower enclosure people putting up the enclosure. The shower curb was caulked, but only after the shower enclosure had been installed.

Whenever the homeowner takes a shower, the water splashes onto the door, runs down, and drains out the end of the metal framing and goes thru the unsealed grout at the joint between the wall and the shower curb cap. He is now going to have to pay to remove a shower enclosure, so we can caulk that one inch strip of wall and curb behind the metal framing. Again, this time only a few hundred dollars, but still a lot of money for a problem that would never have happened if the caulking had been done properly. Whoever you end up selecting to do your bathroom remodeling project, always make sure they are licensed, have real references and very importantly, make sure they understand the critical need to properly seal all joints and corners of wet areas. A $3-$4 dollar tube of caulk, applied properly and at the right time, can save you hundreds, or ever thousands of dollars down the road.

If you’d like help with your caulking, shower leak, or any other bathroom repair or remodeling project we can help.

We often get calls from people who are interested in adding a bathroom, or a 1/2 bath, or converting a 1/2 bath to a full bath. These plans seem especially popular in the condos along the intracoastal of North Palm Beach, as well as Century Village and City Place in West Palm Beach. To the homeowner, these projects often seem straight forward. They also often appear like a rather reasonable and inexpensive upgrade to the home.

The problem is, you can’t just “throw a shower or tub in a closet.” To modify the plumbing of a house requires permitting, and many areas will not let you make these kind of modifications without first getting engineered drawings. If you are in a condo, you might also have to get permission to modify your unit from the condo board. Once you have paid a few thousand dollars for drawings that show the engineering for the changes you want to make, you will need to have licensed contractor who understands that interconnectedness of building structures,  your toilet will have to be removed, the slab around the toilet will have to be cut out, the waste plumbing for you toilet will have to be  cut and replaced with a sanitary “T” to allow the water from you new bathing area or bathing area and sink and toilet to be connected to your existing waste system, the slab on your home will have to be cut out to connect to the new area, This is only after it has been determined that you have enough “drop” to allow for sufficient drainage. this underground work will add thousands of dollars to the project. Then you have the work that you can see, the new walls, lights, floors, tile, plumbing fixtures, etc.

So while a typical complete bathroom remodel can start at less than $5,000.00, it is common to have twice that invested in the drawings, license, and underground work, before one starts the remodeling and finishing aspect. Adding a bathroom, or expanding from a 1/2 bath to a full bath is usually more expensive than the added value to the house.

So before you spend $15,000.00-50,000.00 (depending on the size and scope of the work) for your expansion, it is important to consider a few things:

1) Is this your longterm home? Are you committed to living there for over 10 yrs?

2) How important is it to you and your family to add or expand a bathroom?

3) Could you relocate to a home closer to your needs for less than you could modify your existing home?

NOTE: if you are going to do a major expansion project, such as add a master suite or a new living room/dining room/kitchen area, then adding a bathroom makes a good deal of sense. In fact, in some areas, increasing a home to have more bedrooms might require more bathrooms.

The overall value of the property versus the cost of the project can impact your decision, as well. If your home is a $5,000,000.00 beach front home in Palm Beach, or a $2,000,000.00 spread in Wellington, then a project that is about 1% of the total value of the home is practical, whereas if you live in a typical $100,000 – $300,000.00 home, spending over 10% of the value of your home on the upgrade might not be the best choice.

Tile Selection is a very personal decision, and really, any color, shape, size, finish is acceptable. It is YOUR bathroom. But here are things to consider.

Size matters, in that for floor tile, most people prefer a larger tile, as it does minimize grout joints, which in turn makes it easier to keep clean. But on the other hand, grout lines work a little bit like treads on your tire. they reduce the likelihood that you will lose your footing on a wet bathroom or shower floor.  Two other considerations on size/shape: The smaller the area to be tiled, the odder it looks to use a larger tile. A typical hall bathroom is five feet wide, an eighteen or twenty-four inch tile means the floor is covered on two or less tiles, especially in front of the vanity. One solution is to set the tile on a diagonal pattern, which breaks up the visual, while preserving the reduction in grout lines. Note, there is an additional cost to set tile on the diagonal, both in labor and wasted tile.

The other issue is the shape of tile. Today, most floor tile is square, in twelve, thirteen, sixteen, eighteen or twenty-four inch, while wall tile is rectangular, with dimensions of eight by ten, eight by twelve, nine by thirteen, and even larger. Again size matters, in a relative sense. If you have a grand master bathroom with floor dimensions of over eight feet wide and ten feet deep, and especially if your bathroom ceilings are over eight feet high, fifteen by twenty or twelve by twenty-four inch wall tile can be beautiful. In the typical hall bathroom, tiles larger than nine by thirteen inches usually look a little overwhelming. Also keep in mind, larger tile, and the heavier square floor tile add to your labor costs if you choose to have them set on walls.

Lastly, color and finish, while a matter of personal taste, are showing certain market trends. In various areas of the country, bright colors, earth tones, natural stone looking tiles are all the leading sellers, depending, of course what part of the country you live in. South Florida tends to be a leader, because we have so much tile in our homes.

The trend has been towards a matte, stone looking finish for several years, and even though colorful glass tiles have also gained in popularity, the travertino tiles are still the favorites. And while the lighter beiges and off whites are still somewhat more popular, the darker, noches are fast becoming the best sellers in high end neighborhoods, from the various towers in CityPlace, to Palm Beach Gardens and even some of the finer homes in the old downtown parts of West Palm Beach.

So make sure you are happy with your choice before it goes on the wall, because almost anything goes, but once it is up, you are going to be looking at it for a long time!

If you’d like help with your tile choices or any other bathroom repair or remodeling project we can help.

Caulk is a basic part of the construction and maintenance of any bathroom. It should be applied to all joints in any tiled wall, which includes the corners of the walls, as well and the floor and ceiling (if the tile goes to the ceiling).

Caulk will NOT repair a leaking shower pan, but if you have cracks in the corners, or gaps under the shower curb (step in area) or at the joint of the tub and tile around your bathtub, you can develop a water leak even if all your plumbing is in good working order.

It is a good idea to inspect your shower and tub surrounds on a regular basis, a casual glance anytime you are bathing will let you know if the walls are separating at the corners, but about once per month, or at least a couple of times per year, one should get down and look at the edge of the tub and under the inside of the curb if you have a shower.

How to Caulk/What kind of Caulk?

We use DAP® KWIK SEAL PLUS® Premium Kitchen & Bath Adhesive Caulk w/MICROBAN®, while the are other fine caulk products made by reputable companies, the handy squeeze tube, anti microbe,  and super elasticity of this product makes for satisfactory and long lasting repairs.

Traditionally, you had to buy caulk in large cardboard or hard plastic tubes and load them into a caulking gun, which, if you didn’t buy a high quality enough gun, would sometimes leave you with a trigger  failure, and no matter the quality of the gun, you always had to deal with the dripping caulk between uses. Today, caulk is still sold this way, but it is also offered in a squeeze tube, more like a toothpaste tube. you simply remove the cap, cut the tip of the tube at a sloping angle, and squeeze as you need, replacing the cap to save the remainder for a few minutes later, or a few weeks later. the cost per ounce is pretty close either way.

The second question is how do you actually apply the caulk? I have seen so many bathrooms where a homeowner or a handyman has slathered caulk, not only on the gap, but about an inch on each side of the crack, as well. Besides being terribly unattractive, this method doesn’t even properly seal the area. The surface of most tile is already sealed, some of it even has a high glaze, in either case, tile is not a suitable surface for caulk to bond to. the edge of the tile (in the grout line or at the tub lip) is porous, as is most grout. Caulk bonds nicely to the unfinished tile and to grout. the ideal method of application is to run a bead of caulk down the gap, and then remove as much of the excess caulk as you can.

Years ago, I was taught to use the end of my finger, actually the bottom of the first joint of my index finger to smooth caulk. This works fine on finished wood prior to painting, or even better on old painted wood, but when I started working with tile, I quickly realized that much of the time, an edge or joint that needs caulking, has at least one surface that is a cut piece of tile. the cut edge on tile is about as sharp as a razor blade, so not only do you cut your finger, your  caulk has a tendency to look kind of pink! Today, I always use a commercial grout sponge, these are available at your local home improvement store, for about three bucks, and can be found in the flooring department. If you forget the sponge, an old rag will do fine, dampen it and wrap the tip of your finger in it and wipe. in any event, you should have almost no caulk visible outside of the actually crack. Caulk is cheap. a water leak is not. Apply it generously, and then wipe off the excess.

If you are experiencing a leak, caulk is not the solution to a pan failure, or a tub leak, but as water will go through any opening it find, it is a good idea to make sure everything is tight before you call a bathroom specialist. If a $3.00 tube of caulk can save a $2000-$3000, shower or tub replacement, it is a good investment. If it doesn’t stop the leak, then it is the time to call us.

As a side note, Palm Beach Builders will come to your home and recaulk your bathroom, as needed, and also inspect your bathtub or shower and give you a free estimate if more work is needed. but keep in mind, while our estimates are ALWAYS FREE, for us to caulk your bathroom will run about $100.00, so if you are physically able to do it, there is no need to pay a professional to recaulk your bathing area.

If you’d like help with caulking or any other bathroom repair or remodeling project we can help.

While most of the time, when I am called out because a homeowner has a leaky shower, it is pretty obvious where the leak is, sometimes, the moisture has an ambiguous origin. There can be a couple of other reasons, besides a leaky pan to cause water to either leak downstairs and to the outside of the curb (shower step in area). If you have a shower door or curtain, it is possible, especially if you have children using the shower, that you are getting splashover water, that is either, in the case of a curtain, going under or around the bottom and ends of the curtain. In the case of a shower door, check to make sure the door is properly caulked, and that the waterseal device at the bottom of the door isn’t leaking.

You may also either have grout cracks in the corners that are wide enough and high enough to let some water run down the walls behind the pan, or you might have a large opening under the inside lip of the curb, especially if the curb top is a slab of marble. I have known many veteran tile setters who sometimes overlook this gap. Simply lean down and look under the step, if you do not see tile or grout solidly to the bottom of the marble slab, you will want to seal it, either with grout and caulk, or if it is a small opening, just caulk. (note: the heating and cooling, as well as the dramatic changes in humidity in a typical bathroom may cause the walls to expand and contract at different rates and cause cracking, all 90 degree corners should be caulked as well as grouted.

If you aren’t sure what is causing your leak, you do, or have a plumber do for you, a leak test. Palm Beach Builders can do it for you, too, for a minimal cost. This involves removing the metal drain cover from the drain of your shower and inserting a rubber ball like device, filling the shower with water up to just under the curb, and letting it sit overnight. if the water level is down significantly by morning, the pan has to be replaced. If the water is basically as deep as it was when you went to bed, you probably have a leak at one of the aforementioned locations.

Question from homeowner:

We just painted and got some paint in the tub. Should I use turpentine to get it off? It’s an interior latex paint and the tub is an old one (70’s) it’s porcelan, maybe (?) Also, is there something I can use to make it whiter?

Answer:

If you have tried scrubbing your tub with Softscrub and/or, but not at the same time, wiping it down with regular household bleach (with good ventilation) and leaving it on for several minutes and then rinsing, then your only two choices are refinish or replace.

(Note: Softscrub is not recommended for general tub cleaning, in spite of its name, it is an abrasive cleaner)

Refinishing is just a paint job, so it will come off if it isn’t done well, or if you use the tub everyday. It is ideal for a guest bath after the kids are gone.

A good refinish costs about $250.00-$300.00 dollars, make sure they do a good acid wash first do not get the cheapest guy you can find. replacing the tub costs about 200-300 for an Americast (don’t use steel unless you plan to sell in a couple of years) then you are going to either have to pay a plumber about $400.00- $600.00 to set it, unless you are really brave and do it yourself. It is not impossible, if you are really handy. If you hire a plumber, he will totally tear up your walls, leaving you an unusable bath. Then you have to either hire a tile man or do it your self, to remove the damaged walls and replace them with Durock board and replace the tile. So your total cost for a new tub will range anywhere from about $1000.00, if you do most of it your self, or up to $3000.00 if you have a professional to do the complete project.

There are a couple of things to consider.

$300.00 vs $3000.00, if the tub is in good shape, with no rust.

You can just replace the tub and part of a full bath remodel, you should be able to totally update and replace a typical hall bath for in the neighborhood of $5,000.00.

You are not likely going to be able to match the tile, even if it is 4×4 white tile, so do you want a patched up looking wall?

If you’d like help with your bathtub repair or any other bathroom repair or remodeling project we can help.

There is never a “good” time for someone to come into your home and totally disrupt your life. We work with homeowners everyday, so we try to make our work as unobtrusive as possible and we work around your schedule. The best time to schedule a project is when you are ready, we can usually accommodate your plans as long as we have two to three weeks notice. Note: If your schedule is flexible, we can sometimes save you money by giving you a discount to fit our schedule.

We have trustworthy employees so you will feel comfortable if you have to run an errand, you won’t be worrying about the good silver disappearing while you are out. Our workers also respect that they are working in your home, not that you are living on a construction site. You are going to get some noise, dirt and dust, but we work to keep them to an absolute minimum and we clean up after ourselves. You will still need to clean up a bit after the project is finished, but we haul away the debris and sweep up our work area when we finish every job.

Traditionally, the built environment has been designed for an idealized, able-bodied, non-elderly adult. Since that description fits less than 15 percent of our population, the result is environments, including kitchens and bathrooms, which create handicaps and barriers for the rest of us. Demographics, legislation, public awareness, and personal experience are pressing us to examine the basic assumptions we have used in design, particularly in high function areas like the kitchen and bath.

The result is design that breaks the traditional molds and is more flexible and adaptable. It is accessible to or useable by all people, regardless of age, size, or physical ability, as much as possible. This is Universal Design.

In terms of bath design, you will want to consider clear floor spaces sufficient for entering, closing the door, and approaching each fixture. In addition, you’ll want support in the walls for grab bars to be placed as needed. The beautiful choices available today in fixtures make it easy to create this supportive environment attractively. For more information, ask your Watkins Construction representative.

Unless your fixtures are easily removable in one piece and are at least 40 years old, they probably have not monetary value. Even then, the salvage yard will likely pay you less than 10 cents on the dollar for their asking price, and you will have to haul the old stuff to them. They don’t make house calls. We will dispose of any old fixtures with the other items from the demolition and put them in a county approved landfill. If you know of someone who wants your old toilet, sink or shower doors, we will try to save them for you.

The price of a fixture depends on a great deal of options. The type and quality of the valve; the variety of finishes; the quality of the finish; as well as the length of the warranty. Better faucets will have ceramic cartridges and be made of solid brass. The most costly units will have outstanding design and be available in such exotic finishes as antique or polished copper; stainless steel, etc. If you are looking for value, keep in mind that the working parts of any brand’s fixture are pretty much the same. The additional cost for the cosmetics may be worthwhile if you appreciate the visual improvement, but you are not improving the mechanics by adding a brass finish or choosing a “classic” toilet or tub.