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Overheard a contractor bragging about using 'thinset caulk' for everything
Was picking up supplies at the Rona on 99 Street and heard this guy telling his apprentice he uses that acrylic caulk for baseboards and shower tile. I almost butted in, but figured it wasn't my place. How many new homeowners are getting screwed by shortcuts like that because they don't know any better?
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angelar571mo ago
Look, I get the frustration but is this really that big of a deal? Plenty of guys use acrylic caulk for baseboards and it works fine. Yeah, it's not ideal for showers but it's not like the house is gonna fall down. The real problem is people thinking caulk is some magic fix for everything, not one specific product. If the shower tile is done right with proper waterproofing behind it, the caulk is just cosmetic anyway. New homeowners definitely need to learn the basics, but this isn't the worst shortcut I've seen.
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lopez.karen1mo ago
Three out of four people at my local hardware store grab the cheapest tube on the shelf without even reading what it's for, @angelar57, and that's basically how half the half-baked fixes in this country get started.
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grantadams1mo agoMost Upvoted
@lopez.karen, you hit on something I see all the time. People grab the cheapest or most familiar option without checking what they're actually buying. I noticed this same thing at the grocery store last week. Guy next to me grabbed a bottle of "all purpose cleaner" and tossed it in his cart. But it was actually just a degreaser for kitchen stoves. The packaging was almost identical. I think that rush to just get something, anything, is why so many small projects turn into bigger headaches later on. It's like we all want the fix but don't want to spend two minutes learning what the fix actually is.
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