verap52•22d agoMost Upvoted

Caulked an entire kitchen island before realizing the gap was 3/16 too wide

Wasted 4 hours filling it and sanding it down because I didn't check my reveal first. Anyone else get tripped up by thinking you can just caulk your way out of a bad fit?

3 comments

3 Comments

claire_butler122d ago

Thing is, if the gap is that big caulk will just crack and peel off eventually anyway. It's not really made to fill big spaces, just small ones.

rileyl9822d ago

Hold on, so you're saying the gap is like an inch wide? Because I literally just watched a neighbor of mine try to fill a 2-inch gap around his basement window with caulk and it looked like a sad, lumpy disaster within a month. Like, it didn't just crack, it completely split in half and started peeling off in sheets like old sunburn. I feel like you'd need a proper backer rod or spray foam for anything over a quarter inch, or else caulk is basically just expensive play-doh that's gonna fall out.

terry_barnes22d ago

rileyl98 has it right about the backer rod, that's the way to go. But for a 3/16 inch gap you actually want to use caulk with a proper backer rod behind it to save material. The caulk is still the right thing to seal a gap that size, you just need to make sure the bond is strong and it's not filling a void all by itself. What got you was not checking the depth before you started, which lets the caulk sag and shrink too much. @rileyl98 is spot on about anything bigger than a quarter inch needing spray foam, but 3/16 is still in caulk territory if you do it right. You just gotta push a foam rod in first to take up most of the space, then run your bead on top.