Month: July 2021

Whenever I do a job I always try to look it up on youtube first to see what other people have to say about doing it. Unfortunately, sometimes the information presented on youtube is contradictory. A perfect example of this is, when caulking a tub, should you fill the tub with water so the caulk sets with the tub in a lower position?

I can see the logic in people saying that one should do this. The theory is, tubs can move down a little bit at when they are filled with the weight of the water plus a person taking a bath; so if you fill it with water while the caulk is setting, the caulk will stretch out a little bit, and thus will not crack or detach when the tub is filled with water down the road.

I got curious, so I looked into this a little further.

What I found out was, first of all, GE, which makes the caulking I use, has nothing to say on the subject. I called up their consumer tech support and asked if I should I fill the tub with water, and they said, “we don’t have anything to say about that.” So I guess they don’t think you need to do it.

Second, Tommy on this old House doesn’t say anything about filling the tub with water. I know he is not omniscient, but he does know an awful lot.

And finally, I have caulked tubs several times, sometimes filling tub with water and some sometimes not (oops, I forgot), and I have found that it makes no difference that I can see.

One also has to consider, if you do manage to lower the tub by an eighth of an inch, or by whatever bit of play exists in the mounting of the tub, once you remove the weight of the water, you now have whatever tension pressure existing in the tub support now exerting that pressure upwards on the bottom course of all the wall tiles.  I’m not sure that is such a good idea.  Caulk can stretch when pulled but i don’t think it will compress as easily when pushed.

I can see how maybe some tile jobs had problems that led to this conventional wisdom of filling a caulked tub with water. If you use anything less than high-end caulking, it’s bound to crack and/or come loose. And if you don’t prep the surface properly, meaning you did not get it clean, clean, clean, any slight movement of the tub will cause the caulking to detach.

Also a side note, I occasionally get silicone caulking on my clothes. I am thoroughly amazed at just how pliable and elastic this stuff is once it is fully cured.  The whole idea of using silicone caulking is, it is highly flexible, and able to withstand any shifting in the planes of a bathroom wall.

Now granted I have not done a full-on mythbusters test of 10 to 12 tubs made of different materials. So I can’t claim this is definitive or truly scientific. But I cannot see a clear reason to bother with filling a tub with water when caulking.

Also, if the caulking were to crack or come loose, you can always do it over again. But if you push the tiles up away from the wall, you are now into a much higher level of difficulty of fix.

In sum, I would not bother filling a tub with water when caulking. It’s an intriguing idea but I am not seeing any empirical data to support it, and the upward pressure on the tiles strikes me as a pretty good reason to not do it.

– JL

Every once in a while I get asked to fix the caulk on a sink.  All too often the old sink looks all gunkified, like this:

and, from further away:Such an insult to the spirit.  Anyway, after an hour of cleaning out the old gunk with brushes and a jackknife, and re caulking with the right pure silicone product, we get this:

I have to say, there is a very high degree of artistic satisfaction to be derived from this kind of work.  Yes, the caulk is functional, but after getting it nice and concave and even all around, you also get a rush of aesthetic pleasure when it’s done right.     And there is also the sense of achievement in overcoming the difficulty of working with 100% silicone.  It is VERY sticky and VERY unforgiving and one has only 90 seconds to do the final “tooling” (shaping) before it becomes too hard to work with.

This sink came out great and yes, I feel pretty smug about it 🙂

As a handyman I am often asked to assemble things, everything from armoires to chairs to bicycles. As a result, I have to suffer thru assembly instructions, many of which are simply godawful.

I have to ask . . . WHY? Why is it that these instructions are almost always done so poorly? Why interact so sparsely and ineffectively with a recent customer? Why not use this opportunity to reinforce the purchase decision and cultivate your relationship? Why demonstrate incompetence and lack of concern for your customer at this most critical juncture?

Before I became a handyman I was very much involved mass communications, everything from TV to publishing to speaking. I realize no one will ever read this, but for my own sanity, here is a basic guide to creating useful assembly instructions:

1) Be aware of your customer’s point of view. They may not have the same technical background as yourself, so it’s helpful to make an effort to establish common language. For example, I just installed a Defiant brand keyless deadbolt. At one point, the instructions read “make sure the plug is facing OUT.

OUT? Does that mean OUT as in facing me, or OUT as in facing the exterior of the house? Very important to reduce ambiguity. Other people may not know what you mean when you use a certain word. Like OUT. It is not a sin to repeat the instruction in a different phraseology. Like, facing it toward YOU Or facing the EXTERIOR.

2) Warn about likely common errors. i.e., “As you do this next step, be careful to not do X.”  Knowledge of what ways are wrong and what to avoide is called EXPERIENCE.  Share it.

3) Avoid using somewhat technical words like “Flange.” Any word describing a piece of the thing, like “strut” or “housing,” well, you the technical writer may know these words but the reader may not. Always better to say “doodad” and then describe it.

As I mentioned, I just installed a Defiant keyless deadbolt. Once I got the thing all installed, the thumb turn (the thing that lets you turn the lock on the inside of the door) [see how I did not assume you know what a thumb turn is???] would not turn past 2 o’clock. I assumed the whole thing was busted but when I called the help line they said “even tho it seems to be totally broken, it is fine, just install it and enter the code to let it reset itself.

Great news, but since this a common problem, WHY IS THIS LIKELY GLITCH NOT MENTIONED IN THE INSTRUCTIONS?

I was also admonished by the help person to not tighten the machine screws too tight. Great. I appreciate that, but WHY IS THIS NOT MENTIONED IN THE INSTRUCTIONS?

I am sorry to dump on Defiant so much, they were just the latest assembly instructions I had to suffer thru. The phone help was actually great.

I did an Ancheer bike a few weeks ago and that was the WORST assembly kit ever.

As I sit here ranting, asking why things are not done a better way, I actually know the answer. I call it corporate stage fright. These minimalist instructions are a result of a need to hide and conceal one’s own humanity. It’s a fear of being laughed at. It’s a form of shame energy, which, if not managed and processed, results in creating what is essentially a test that you, dear reader, will fail.

I have to mention, one of the great benefits of arts education is to bring one out of that stage-fright-ridden shame state, and lose one’s terror of being seen as a flawed human being.

There is no excuse for any of the companies, as I am sitting right here. Send me the kit (well, two of them so I can do pix of unassembled and assembled) and I will put it all together for you.

JL

So I got an advertisement in my inbox to day that was so very misleading I felt compelled to write this post.  It has to do with these little boxes being marketed as portable air conditioners.  This is reminiscent of that device that claimed to be able to see thru walls.

There is a video on youtube that explains it way better than I can

Now to be fair, these units actually DO work . . . kinda sorta.  but they cool the same as any humidifier.  The science is, when water evaporates it takes some heat with it . . .  but not all that much, and if the air is already high humidity, no water will be removed by evaporation, hence, no heat will be removed.

It amazes me that this kind of thing can be marketed legally, making such outrageous claims.  Don’t be a sucker.

Main thing you can do to keep cooler is to CLEAN THE AIR FILTER in your regular real AC units.  – JL