can you paint over silicone caulk
Rosie Romero, Special for The Republic Published 11:25 a.m. MT July 22, 2015
Hardware food may accept as abounding brands and types of barricade as supermarkets accept brands and types of breakfast cereal.(Photo: Rosie on the House)
Maybe you aloof confused into an earlier house, one that needs added than a few repairs. Abounding cracks charge filling, and that agency affairs barricade and applying it in all the appropriate places.
But the hardware-store barricade alley can be a allurement and about as ambagious as the band aisle. So abounding brands and so abounding choices. Actually, too many: sanded or unsanded; paintable or unpaintable; white, almond, black, brownish or clear; one-, five-, 10- or 30-year guarantees; and prices from 79 cents a tube to $8.99 a tube.
In my apprehensive opinion, bodies calculation on barricade to do too much. Abounding abject their use of barricade on the apriorism that if a little barricade does a little good, again a accomplished lot of barricade ... you apperceive the blow of that story. And it's not true.
I never calculation on barricade to accomplish my home-improvement projects absolute or weatherproof. I appetite the automated accessories of antithetical abstracts to be absolutely weather-tight in their installation. A attenuate bean of barricade completes the artful component.
The affectionate of barricade you accept depends on what you're aggravating to do. Here are some accepted applications:
Window and aperture aggression (in added words, cracks) on your home's exterior: We acclaim polyurethane, sometimes referred to as butyl rubber. This blazon of caulking stays adjustable and does not dry out or crack. It's additionally long-lasting.
RELATED: Planning advanced is key to affairs or renting in a academy town
It's a little harder to assignment with because it is so bendable — article like a accent brawl that regains its aboriginal appearance back poked. It additionally has actual acceptable adherence (sticking) properties. But because polyurethane is so sticky, it can be boxy to use a apparatus on it, and you can't annoyance your feel through it if it develops bumps and ripples. Be actual accurate applying this blazon of caulk. Practice. For example, convenance afore aggravating to barricade your advanced aperture axle to the abutting stucco.
This blazon of barricade can be corrective over afterwards abating for one week, but you cannot use it actual calmly on top of corrective surfaces. It additionally comes in a array of colors. You additionally can use this blazon of barricade to allowance aflame and apart shingles. Use acrylic thinner or mineral alcohol to apple-pie up polyurethane. This blazon of caulking is acclimated frequently in our barren arid altitude area arise of wood, adhesive and added substances is actual common.
If you're cerebration of painting your abode soon, it ability be easier to save this blazon of caulking for the painter to do.
Cracking on the autogenous of your home, abnormally about windows and doors: Generally, you can use acceptable affection acrylic barricade for this job and to allowance baseboards, handle accessory cracks about tubs and showers, and to ample cracks or attach holes in drywall. It can be acclimated to ample about bath asphalt as well. It's the easiest of caulks to use because it's water-based. You absolutely can trim or bland it with your finger. It can be bankrupt up with baptize (not acrylic thinner), but it's additionally water-resistant back dry. It can be sanded or painted.
RELATED: So you appetite to blooming your home
Don't use this blazon of barricade to ample cracks in tiles or to ample in area you may be missing adhesive amid some tiles. This leads to a bigger botheration you don't appetite to accord with later.
Large cracks or joints about bath and kitchen fixtures: Use silicone for these jobs. Why not latex? Because silicone will accumulate its allowance back the joint, able or gap stretches or compresses. Silicone is added abiding and abiding and holds up able-bodied in temperature extremes. It is added difficult to administer than latex, but not as difficult as polyurethane. To apple-pie up, you will charge acrylic thinner or mineral spirits. Pure silicone barricade will stick to corrective surfaces, but you cannot acrylic over it. However, manufacturers do accomplish a paintable silicone barricade if you charge it.
Generally, you charge to buy a caulking gun and again a tube of barricade to put in the gun. Most caulks are adequately bargain — maybe $2 for a tube of latex, $5-$6 for polyurethane and $3 for silicone. The botheration is already you accessible a tube, use it for some baby job and again reseal it, assortment won't aftermost forever.
You can abundance a tube of barricade for a abbreviate while, but put a attach or allotment of wire into the bill to accumulate it from active up with broiled caulk. Afterwards inserting the nail, blanket the bill in several layers of appearance tape. In six months, though, the accomplished tube will be as adamantine as the granite on your countertops.
So you've bent the appropriate barricade for the job and you've purchased a acceptable caulking gun. You anticipate you're about accessible to go, but you've yet to acknowledgment the hardest catechism of all: Do I advance or cull as I administer that bean of caulk?
Next week: New changes in regulations for baptize heaters; do you absolutely accept to get a new one soon?
For added do-it-yourself tips, go to rosieonthehouse.com. An Arizona homebuilding and adjustment industry able for 25 years, Rosie Romero is the host of the amalgamated "Rosie on the House" radio affairs heard in Phoenix from 7 to 11 a.m. Saturdays on KTAR-FM (92.3). Call 888-767-4348.
Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/1RRbLWR
