Silicone before grout or grout before silicone?

[Wes]

Yea I get that ROC. Same with most trades. This particular thread highlighted what I thought and the amount of times I've seen grouting in joints and even without silicone (you know cracking to pieces) is far more than I've seen done the right way. It's nice to confirm my thoughts.

I'm obviously no bathroom fitter but when I fitted my last bathroom, I made the mistake of grouting in the internal joints and siliconed over them. Don't know where I got it from and should have used a bit of the ole common really, but it didn't feel right when I was doing it Should have consulted the oracle (UHM)

[Colour Republic]

The silcone isn't just there to provide waterproof seal to wet areas, it is also there to provide an expansion joint.

Have you ever seen two tiles that have 'tented' i.e. they have sundenly come away from the way to form a point? or a tile in the middle of the wall that has suddenly cracked? This is because an expansion gap has not been provided and instead has been filled with a hard material like grout.

This is caused by the wall expanding and contracting and finally something has to give. If you use flexible tile adhesive and provide an expansion gap which is filled with a flexible material like silicone the wall or floor will have a much greater amount of movement before it fails.

not sure if you can see from the pics but this is a bathroom we are currently doing, hopefully you can see that the joint between the floor and the wall, also between the floor and the shower tray, has been left free of grout, this will get siliconed in a matching colour (in this case jasmine)

[royaloakcarpentry]

Wes

When I started sub contracting work form the cotractor I pull most of my work from, they used a commercial tiler. Time served. 30 years under his belt.

You name it he does it, cheap contract tiles right the way through to book matched tiling. he can tile bottom upwards or start at the ceiling and work down. In have seen him work without the use of spacers and then sneekily checked the gaps before he grouted. F**** me I gave up checking after 30 random points wiht a 2mm spacer, all spot on! So not only does he have the experience, superb work rate but an excellent eye.

He did 3 jobs on the work I sub contract and then I told the contractor not to send him and that I would do the tiling myself.

Reason for the decision.................Grouting is as 5hit as you like. Slapped in, out comes the washboy, then 30 minutes later out it comes again. Job done, thank you very much.

Not on my watch and when my name is on the entire job.

I now have his old apprentice come in on my work from time to time when I am busy. Works out well because he rolls in at work at about 3pm after finishing his foreman duties on commercial work.

[royaloakcarpentry]

Nice example of a craft being duly undertaken, there CR.