The caulking at the top of our fiberglass shower/tub failed with age. By the
time I noticed it, water damaged the edge of the drywall. I've cleaned out the
old caulk, the damaged mud, and the damaged drywall. The drywall butts up to the
lip of the shower.

What kind of mud do I use to repair the intersection of the shower and the
drywall? Will any drywall mud do? I assume that I mud up to the horizontal
surface of the shower and then caulk the intersection. Is that correct?

I can provide a picture of the problem if this description is too hard to follow.

On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 11:26:10 -0400, mcp6453 wrote:

The caulking at the top of our fiberglass shower/tub failed with age. By the
time I noticed it, water damaged the edge of the drywall. I've cleaned out the
old caulk, the damaged mud, and the damaged drywall. The drywall butts up to the
lip of the shower.

What kind of mud do I use to repair the intersection of the shower and the
drywall? Will any drywall mud do? I assume that I mud up to the horizontal
surface of the shower and then caulk the intersection. Is that correct?

I can provide a picture of the problem if this description is too hard to follow.

You only need to seal the edge of the fiberglass surround and the
drywall. Use a small horizontal bead to seal it. (Acrylic Latex
caulk)

On 7/5/2013 11:47 AM, Oren wrote:
On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 11:26:10 -0400, mcp6453 wrote:

The caulking at the top of our fiberglass shower/tub failed with age. By the
time I noticed it, water damaged the edge of the drywall. I've cleaned out the
old caulk, the damaged mud, and the damaged drywall. The drywall butts up to the
lip of the shower.

What kind of mud do I use to repair the intersection of the shower and the
drywall? Will any drywall mud do? I assume that I mud up to the horizontal
surface of the shower and then caulk the intersection. Is that correct?

I can provide a picture of the problem if this description is too hard to follow.

You only need to seal the edge of the fiberglass surround and the
drywall. Use a small horizontal bead to seal it. (Acrylic Latex
caulk)


The drywall repair should be primed (and painted, if that is what is on
the rest of the wall) and the primer/paint allowed to cure before caulking.

On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 12:35:02 -0400, Norminn
wrote:

On 7/5/2013 11:47 AM, Oren wrote:
On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 11:26:10 -0400, mcp6453 wrote:

The caulking at the top of our fiberglass shower/tub failed with age. By the
time I noticed it, water damaged the edge of the drywall. I've cleaned out the
old caulk, the damaged mud, and the damaged drywall. The drywall butts up to the
lip of the shower.

What kind of mud do I use to repair the intersection of the shower and the
drywall? Will any drywall mud do? I assume that I mud up to the horizontal
surface of the shower and then caulk the intersection. Is that correct?

I can provide a picture of the problem if this description is too hard to follow.

You only need to seal the edge of the fiberglass surround and the
drywall. Use a small horizontal bead to seal it. (Acrylic Latex
caulk)


The drywall repair should be primed (and painted, if that is what is on
the rest of the wall) and the primer/paint allowed to cure before caulking.


.... how did the water damage happen? Have a vent fan in the room, OP?

On 7/5/2013 1:21 PM, Oren wrote:
On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 12:35:02 -0400, Norminn
wrote:

On 7/5/2013 11:47 AM, Oren wrote:
On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 11:26:10 -0400, mcp6453 wrote:

The caulking at the top of our fiberglass shower/tub failed with age. By the
time I noticed it, water damaged the edge of the drywall. I've cleaned out the
old caulk, the damaged mud, and the damaged drywall. The drywall butts up to the
lip of the shower.

What kind of mud do I use to repair the intersection of the shower and the
drywall? Will any drywall mud do? I assume that I mud up to the horizontal
surface of the shower and then caulk the intersection. Is that correct?

I can provide a picture of the problem if this description is too hard to follow.

You only need to seal the edge of the fiberglass surround and the
drywall. Use a small horizontal bead to seal it. (Acrylic Latex
caulk)


The drywall repair should be primed (and painted, if that is what is on
the rest of the wall) and the primer/paint allowed to cure before caulking.


... how did the water damage happen? Have a vent fan in the room, OP?


Here is a little more information. It appears that when the drywall was
installed 20+ years ago, the void between the top of the surround and the bottom
edge of the drywall was mudded. That would certainly be the easiest way to
repair this mess. However, as I dug deeper, I found some areas behind the mud
where water had gotten. I dug out all of the mud in the void between the
surround and the drywall. At one point, the void is 1/8". On the log side, it's
1/4". On the other end, it's 1/2".

It seems that there should be a gap between the surround and the drywall/mud so
that the caulking can provide an absolute seal. However, if I do nothing but
caulk, it will look terrible because of the variation in the voids or gaps.

I'm guessing that I need to put something in the void, such as a paint stick
with wax paper on it, so that I can mud to a consistent gap size. Not knowing
anything about installing surrounds, it looks like a sloppy drywall installation
to me. The end of the drywall should leave a gap between itself and the
surround. No mud should be required. Filling the gap with caulk would be optimal.

Or maybe I have it all wrong. That's why I'm asking here.

There is a vent in the bathroom. It runs when someone is taking a shower. The
fan correctly vents to the outside. The only way I can see water getting into
the gap is by splashing during showers.

On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 14:00:03 -0400, mcp6453 wrote:

On 7/5/2013 1:21 PM, Oren wrote:
On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 12:35:02 -0400, Norminn
wrote:

On 7/5/2013 11:47 AM, Oren wrote:
On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 11:26:10 -0400, mcp6453 wrote:

The caulking at the top of our fiberglass shower/tub failed with age. By the
time I noticed it, water damaged the edge of the drywall. I've cleaned out the
old caulk, the damaged mud, and the damaged drywall. The drywall butts up to the
lip of the shower.

What kind of mud do I use to repair the intersection of the shower and the
drywall? Will any drywall mud do? I assume that I mud up to the horizontal
surface of the shower and then caulk the intersection. Is that correct?

I can provide a picture of the problem if this description is too hard to follow.

You only need to seal the edge of the fiberglass surround and the
drywall. Use a small horizontal bead to seal it. (Acrylic Latex
caulk)


The drywall repair should be primed (and painted, if that is what is on
the rest of the wall) and the primer/paint allowed to cure before caulking.


... how did the water damage happen? Have a vent fan in the room, OP?


Here is a little more information. It appears that when the drywall was
installed 20+ years ago, the void between the top of the surround and the bottom
edge of the drywall was mudded. That would certainly be the easiest way to
repair this mess. However, as I dug deeper, I found some areas behind the mud
where water had gotten. I dug out all of the mud in the void between the
surround and the drywall. At one point, the void is 1/8". On the log side, it's
1/4". On the other end, it's 1/2".

It seems that there should be a gap between the surround and the drywall/mud so
that the caulking can provide an absolute seal. However, if I do nothing but
caulk, it will look terrible because of the variation in the voids or gaps.

I'm guessing that I need to put something in the void, such as a paint stick
with wax paper on it, so that I can mud to a consistent gap size. Not knowing
anything about installing surrounds, it looks like a sloppy drywall installation
to me. The end of the drywall should leave a gap between itself and the
surround. No mud should be required. Filling the gap with caulk would be optimal.

Or maybe I have it all wrong. That's why I'm asking here.

There is a vent in the bathroom. It runs when someone is taking a shower. The
fan correctly vents to the outside. The only way I can see water getting into
the gap is by splashing during showers.


You probably want to use durabond for the gaps. Just make sure you
trowel it down, because it's hard, and very difficult to sand.
You mentioned it's a surround. Those flex, and are normally not
butted to drywall, but go over it. The caulk takes the flexing.
So without removing the surround, I'd suggest building up the gaps
with durabond, lower than flush with the surround, and knife it so
there is a about a 1/8" gap Finish it with sandable compound flush or
a tad lower than flush with the surround where it meets the surround.
You want to allow for surround flexing. Then finish it with the
correct paint/sealer.
Then apply a bead of caulk.
Note I've never done a surround myself, but have used durabond in
locations that get wet. That's just how I see it. Could be wrong.
The main issue is the surround flex cracking the compound or durabond.
But if it only hairline cracks under the caulk bead, it doesn't matter
as long as you maintain the caulk bead.

Probably what's most important for you to do right now is to buy some Silicone-Be-Gone:



at any home center in your area and remove the residual silicone caulk completely. That way, you can be confident that the new silicone caulk you put down will stick well to both the fiberglass tub and the ceramic tiling. Even if you have a thin film of silicone caulk remaining on either the tub or the ceramic tiling, nothing sticks to cured silicone, not even new silicone caulk.

Remove the old silicone caulking by smearing Silicone-Be-Gone over it, allowing time for it to work, and then scraping the old softened silicone caulk off with a plastic scraper or steel razor (depending on what you're scraping it off of).

You can get plastic razor blades for scraping the silicone off of your fiberglass tub from Lee Valley:



Note that Silicone-Be-Gone is nothing more than gelled mineral spirits. It doesn;t dissolve silicone caulk, it simply makes it swell up and get soft so that it can be removed more easily by conventional means, such as scraping snd scrubbing.

Now, I have a hard time following your explanation of what you removed from the tiling. Your best bet is to register at:

John Bridge Tile Forum, DIY Tile Advice, Tile How-to Information, Tile Your World

and post some pictures there of what you're dealing with. John is a professional tiling contractor, and he has a DIY Q&A forum just like this one on his web site. Everyone you talk to there will be a tiling contractor and will give you good advice on how to repair what you have. You just need to post some pictures so that they can see exactly what you have. There are various picture posting web sites on the internet where you can post pictures, such as
Photo and image hosting, free photo galleries, photo editing
and provide a link for people to look at them.

The registration on John Bridge's site and at any picture posting sites is free.

On 7/5/2013 2:00 PM, mcp6453 wrote:
On 7/5/2013 1:21 PM, Oren wrote:
On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 12:35:02 -0400, Norminn
wrote:

On 7/5/2013 11:47 AM, Oren wrote:
On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 11:26:10 -0400, mcp6453 wrote:

The caulking at the top of our fiberglass shower/tub failed with age. By the
time I noticed it, water damaged the edge of the drywall. I've cleaned out the
old caulk, the damaged mud, and the damaged drywall. The drywall butts up to the
lip of the shower.

What kind of mud do I use to repair the intersection of the shower and the
drywall? Will any drywall mud do? I assume that I mud up to the horizontal
surface of the shower and then caulk the intersection. Is that correct?

I can provide a picture of the problem if this description is too hard to follow.

You only need to seal the edge of the fiberglass surround and the
drywall. Use a small horizontal bead to seal it. (Acrylic Latex
caulk)


The drywall repair should be primed (and painted, if that is what is on
the rest of the wall) and the primer/paint allowed to cure before caulking.


... how did the water damage happen? Have a vent fan in the room, OP?


Here is a little more information. It appears that when the drywall was
installed 20+ years ago, the void between the top of the surround and the bottom
edge of the drywall was mudded. That would certainly be the easiest way to
repair this mess. However, as I dug deeper, I found some areas behind the mud
where water had gotten. I dug out all of the mud in the void between the
surround and the drywall. At one point, the void is 1/8". On the log side, it's
1/4". On the other end, it's 1/2".

It seems that there should be a gap between the surround and the drywall/mud so
that the caulking can provide an absolute seal. However, if I do nothing but
caulk, it will look terrible because of the variation in the voids or gaps.

I'm guessing that I need to put something in the void, such as a paint stick
with wax paper on it, so that I can mud to a consistent gap size. Not knowing
anything about installing surrounds, it looks like a sloppy drywall installation
to me. The end of the drywall should leave a gap between itself and the
surround. No mud should be required. Filling the gap with caulk would be optimal.

Or maybe I have it all wrong. That's why I'm asking here.

There is a vent in the bathroom. It runs when someone is taking a shower. The
fan correctly vents to the outside. The only way I can see water getting into
the gap is by splashing during showers.


There is almost always condensation, and it can remain quite a while,
even with a vent fan....found that out when I was repainting a bath with
shower. Of course, splashing is always likely as well. Perhaps, if the
shower wasn't caulked properly to begin with, the drywall (overlaps top
of fib.?) might wick up more moisture.