Designing Kitchens and Bathrooms - Bathroom Tile Caulk Issues

I've got some mold / mildew at the corners of our shower. It is BEHIND THE clear caulking that is at the base of the wall / floor tile intersection. I'm assuming there is some gap that is allowing small amount of water to get behind the caulk. I'm going to remove the caulking, clean the grout, let dry, and re-caulk. Shold this fix my probelm?

Use a squirt bottle and get some bleach in there to kill the mold. Cleaning it may cause it to look nice, but the stuff will still be viable and may come back. Be cautious about getting the bleach on things it can harm. Provided you don't find a soggy wall when you get the caulk out, your plan should do the job. If the wall is wet, all bets are off. Use an awl or small screw driver to probe around for soft areas. A rented moisture tester would help also.

Use a squirt bottle and get some bleach in there to kill the mold. Cleaning it may cause it to look nice, but the stuff will still be viable and may come back. Be cautious about getting the bleach on things it can harm. Provided you don't find a soggy wall when you get the caulk out, your plan should do the job. If the wall is wet, all bets are off. Use an awl or small screw driver to probe around for soft areas. A rented moisture tester would help also.

Smokey - not sure what you mean by a soggy wall? The mildew/ mold is occuring betweeen the grout and caulk at the intersection of the floor and wall.

Mold and mildew need moisture to grow. It may be that said moisture is merely the result of a poor caulk job, thereby allowing water behind it. It's also possible it is coming from a leak higher up the wall somewhere and working it's way down to where the mold is showing up. Your assumption as to what's going on may indeed be the case. Then again, it may be symptoms of a larger issue. If so, you'll be wasting your efforts if the root cause of the problem isn't dealt with. While you have the caulk out is an opportune time to do some investigating.

Are you saying here that there is clear caulk over the grout joint? If so, I wonder why?

Are you saying here that there is clear caulk over the grout joint? If so, I wonder why?

HJ - yes clear caulk. Isn't ist standard to caulk the wall to wall and wall to floor tile intersections in a shower?

Yes, it is proper to caulk at those intersections rather than grout. I'm afraid you're looking at recaulking those joints, which means thoroughly cleaning out the old caulk (thoroughly), allowing it to dry well, and reapplying new caulking. If you have moisture behind the walls.. all bets are off....

What is the BEST caulk for this job. I redid all the caulk in my shower last year and within a few months I had mold. I am hopeful it's not getting behind the caulk from a leak within the wall. I cleaned all the old caulk, cleaned out all the mold - used a few different cleaners over the course of a day - rinsed about 10 times to remove all the cleaner and let it dry for 2 days - I thought it was overkill at the time.

My one issue is I have a stand up shower w/ glass door and no exhaust vent. The shower stays went more than it is dry.

Again - any ideas on the best mold resistant caulk to use??

Unfortunately, it's my experience that ALL caulk will mold - even the ones that say mold resistant. It's because your shower stays wet more than it is dry. I would use a caulk that is meant for the bathroom - that says it is mold resistant and has additives that prevent mold growth. More importantly I think though, is to keep a small spray bottle in the shower filled with a water/bleach mix. After each shower spray the area where you're having the problem with a little of the mixture. You can buy a "daily shower spray" at the super market and that will work too but it's cheaper to just use regular bleach. If you don't like the smell than you can use the daily shower spray - they have perfumes in them to mask the bleach smell. Hope that helps.
Toni
www.thetilemuralstore.com

It is very important to have proper ventilation in the bathroom so if you can install a fan and vent (to the OUTSIDE) it will greatly assist in your mold fighting efforts.

I have found that GE Silicone Caulk II Kitchen and Bath with Bio Seal works well. I tend to take long showers and I recently re-caulked my tub and have not had any mold problems since in the areas that I caulked. http://www.geadvancedmaterials.com/geam/gesa/Residential/en/Products/ProductDetail/gesiliconeiikitchenandbath.html.

I did the tub once before with GE Silicone II WITHOUT the Bio Seal and this additive seems to have made a noticeable difference.

They had a to do on their site with two steps I would not have thought of:

4.Clean the area with rubbing alcohol.

5.Fill the tub with water so it pulls the tub to its furthest distance from the wall.

Also, to make a nice bead put blue painter's tape on either side of the joint, put the caulk, smooth it with your finger, then just pull the tape up. That trick has resulted in professional looking caulk jobs since I picked it up.

Use caulk remover to soften up the caulk and I use a heat gun in the crack to dry everything up before I caulk it.

Good luck!