My Bathroom Sink

DIY: Caulking the Bathroom Sink

Caulking a bathroom sink is easier than some homeowners think. Care should be taken so no water or moisture seep into the floor, the cabinet or the woodwork. Moisture or water is terrible for your bathroom floors or unprotected areas. Mold can only spread where there is moisture. Don’t underestimate the danger of mold; it is with no doubt a health hazard for all the users of the bathroom. Once mold seeps into a bathroom, it can cost thousands of dollars to get rid of it. After some months, some homeowners simply discover that the mold is back. Equally destructive is water seeping behind the tiles or into the floor. Repairing that kind of damage cost something around a thousands dollars. Preventing it from happening costs sometimes less than $10 and a couple of hours of easy work.

All these headaches can be avoided by just spending a couple of hours caulking the bathroom sink properly.

What will you need?

Caulking, of course, this can be bought as a tube of caulking or a cartridge for a caulking gun. The choice is a matter of personal preference. If you have just one bathroom, go for the tube, it is cheaper for a one time application. If you want to caulk more than one bathroom, the caulking gun is definitely a useful tool.

The prices range from $4 or $5 for the caulking tube to about $15 for the caulking gun with a cartridge.

Razor blade, screw driver, knife, cleanser. You’ll need to remove the old caulking completely. That means scratching until it is completely gone. This step is more difficult than it seems. Caulking is, due to its purpose, sticky, so you’ll have to scratch until every single piece is completely removed. If you find mold on your old caulking, extra care should be taken. After removing the old caulking completely, clean the spot with alcohol or other stronger cleanser than soap. As said above, mold is a danger to your bathroom.

Wait until it is completely dry to apply the new caulking.

Some extra tips: if the old caulking is only partially broken, do not try to repair only the broken part. Remove it completely and caulk it completely anew. Not removing the old caulk will probably implies that the old problems are still there. Buy quality caulking, specifically developed for a bathroom. It costs only slightly more, but fulfils much better its function.