If you recently noticed cracks on your bathroom baseboards, then you’re probably wondering whether you can use the leftover Caulks to patch the cracks. But bathroom baseboards are moist and wet frequently. Would that cause the caulk to deteriorate faster? Should you caulk baseboards in the bathroom? Here’s the answer.
Caulking is safe to use on bathroom baseboards. They can protect bathroom walls from water leakage, dampness or even insect infestations. Moreover, uneven walls or paint can also be fixed with caulk. Besides the advantages, caulking sometimes comes with some drawbacks. For example, less durability or painting inconvenience, etc. which should also be considered before caulking.
With a bit of caution, caulking can fix the cracks on your bathroom baseboards with no time at all so that you carry on loving every part of your dear house without the cracks and gaps!
Should You Caulk Baseboards In The Bathroom?
Bathroom walls are the dampest areas of households. Moist and sunlight-deprived areas of the house often have gaps in the baseboards or seams. These gaps may ruin your wall. They might also give way for pests inside the house.
Caulking is the most common way of sealing these kinds of cracks in the seams or baseboards of the bathroom.
Advantages
Caulking is a suitable material to seal the cracked seams of your bathroom baseboards. Whether the crack is at the bottom of the baseboards or the top, you can use this sealer to mend the gaps between your bathroom door or baseboards. Here are a few advantages to using caulk on your bathroom baseboards.
Protect From Leakage
Because bathroom walls are always damp and shady corners of your house, they need extra attention to be repaired and protected from leakage and cracks. But you can caulk the baseboards at the door or walls to save them from long-term leakage probabilities.
Generally, woods dry out over time. It is especially true for most old houses. If you’ve been living there for quite a few years, you might notice cracks on the baseboard joints of your bathroom.
Because of its quick effectiveness, caulking has been more trusted in recent years compared to silicon to repair and fix these cracks. This white filling would help seal even the joints of bathroom walls, working as a water-proof adhesive. They are also helpful for modifying the basin seams, cracks, or the baseboard around the tub.
Insect Protection
ProtectProtecting from bug infestation is yet another advantage of caulking. Sometimes insects nest inside the tiny or big cracks in your baseboards, even if you cannot notice them right away.
Insects such as ants, red ants, bed bugs or even other beetle-like ones love to enter your house through the horizontal or vertical cracks. Soon, the bugs start to take over your bathroom and infest your bathroom.
These insects also eat up the baseboards and decrease their lifespan considerably. Therefore, using a caulk to protect your door or bathroom is an option you can consider to save the baseboards.
Damp Walls
As the moistest corners of your house, bathroom baseboards are most vulnerable to the quickest dampness. Because of the frequent use of water around the bottom, the drywall and baseboards tear up often.
Damp walls quickly invite cracks, ruining the baseboards. Therefore, you must consider caulking the baseboard seams even before you paint the house. Irrespective of the condition of your bathroom walls, caulking helps protect walls from getting damp.
Beautification
Sometimes, even after finishing baseboard joints, there are gaps or uneven paint around the seams. Caulking can be of use in this case. Because most caulks, if not all, are white, they blend in well with the baseboard color well for most bathrooms.
Not only on the wall baseboards, but you can also use it on the bathroom door edges or under the doors to reduce the creaking noise of opening or closing the bathroom door.
Disadvantages
While caulking is mostly safe to use, there are still certain conditions that make caulking unfavorable for particular situations. Here is a list of potential drawbacks caulking might have for your bathroom baseboards.
Paint Inconvenience
One of the major shortcomings of caulking is that it cannot be used on paints within 24 hours. If you have newly painted your house or the bathroom area specifically, wait for a day at the very minimum before caulking the baseboards.
If you do not caulk carefully, you might end up ruining not only your caulking but your bathroom baseboards as well. Moreover, the time and money you would waste on the Caulks is yet another concern.
Hot And Humid Weather
Caulking is usually fine for most weather conditions and most joints. However, bathroom baseboards are sensitive areas. What makes them sensitive is their constant exposure to water and drying up.
In times of summer when it is hot, the caulks on your bathroom baseboards might tear or crack themselves because of heat. Therefore, you must check the sealant once or twice every few days especially when it is summer. Additionally, avoid caulking during highly humid weather as it might impact the process negatively.
Expensive
Due to its convenience and ease of use by individuals, caulking is usually a more expensive choice than other sealing materials.
Although there was a period when caulking used to cost $4-7 per tube, that has now gone down by a couple of dollars. Despite its price loss, this sealant still costs more than its substitutes. Therefore, the pricing of caulking might be a deal-breaker for some.
Durability
Caulking dries quicker than silicon and hardens over time. Silicon is often used for its longevity compared to caulking.
For bathroom walls, caulking may be a better choice than silicon since you can paint over them. However, the humidity and dampness might cause this sealant to wear out with time. Silicon, on the other hand, can remain flexible for years on end but is not paintable. Therefore, consider checking the durability while deciding what material to use in your bathroom cracks.
Things To Consider When Caulking Bathroom Baseboard
There are a few things you need to consider before caulking your bathroom baseboards. Your baseboard material is a necessary consideration before applying caulk to the joints. Also, the caulk type should be compatible with your baseboard material. Only if both the baseboard material as well as the caulk are in check, should you caulk your bathroom baseboards.
Here are a few things to consider before caulking your bathroom baseboard.
Bathroom Baseboard Material
For natural, or fiber wood cracks, normal caulking is easy to use. But the quality of the adhesive caulk should be good so that you do not have to deal with the constant trouble of repairing it. Bathroom tiles are also caulk friendly, given that you’re using the right sealant to seal them.
Also, most floorboards are caulk-convenient. The dirt and dust entering the floorboards would cause them to decay over time, so use caulk early on so that you can avoid damaging your bathroom floorboards.
Caulk Type
The type of caulk you’re using is necessary to align with the kind of baseboard material you have. For instance, most bathroom tiles would be compatible with sanded caulk as they are applicable for sealing gaps in wet surfaces.
For floorboards, the acrylic latex type caulk is better because it is compatible with rough surfaces. They also dry faster on floorboards, giving them a stronger bond that lasts a long time. Moreover, all-purpose caulk usually does the job for most door wood or fiber wood. Therefore, you must consider your baseboards’ material carefully before applying caulk to fill in the cracks.
If you were wondering should you use caulk on bathroom baseboards, I hope this article helped answer some of your queries. Caulking is a great quick-fix for most of your bathroom baseboard seams.Just be a little careful of the drawbacks of Caulks so that you don’t mess up the whole process. Caulking is more fun because when you DIY, you will find yourself sealing your cracked bathroom and, at the same time, even enjoy doing it!
