Sealant around UPVC windows

continualdiamond

Had the back of our house (kitchen,bathroom,2nd bedroom window) double glazed about 2.5 years ago.

Just been cleaning the windows and the sealant has started to peal away as i am cleaning over it. It's hard to explain, but around the whole edge of each window is a thick border of UPVC, so going onto the plaster and also window ledge.

We don't have this on our front or bedroom window as these were already double glazed when we moved in. I am assuming that the previous owners plasted over this.

Would i be right in saying this? As i have never see anyone elses house with UPVC border around their windows.

So is this what people do, plaster over it?

In the mean time do i simply reapply the sealant, i can't think of any other way to be careful when cleaning the windows so as not make it peal away.

It bugs me in the kitchen as the window and door have this thick UPVC border which means retilling the whole kitchen which cannot afford to do.

jackieb

We got new upvc windows in last year. They have the sealant on the outside. We have rosewood frames and the sealant is brown to match. So did our last house. We had those windows in 12 years before we moved and the sealant never came off in all that time.

Or are you talking about the inside? All our windows (these ones and the last ones we had) have hardwood picture frame finishes on the inside, so no we don't have sealant inside.

continualdiamond

Sorry yes talking about the inside.

andrew-b

I gather your talking about the inside. The plastic your referring to is known as "cloaking" trim and is basically there to cover up plaster damage that inevitably occurs in fitting new uPVC windows/doors (if it's uPVC in a hardwood frame then usually hardwood beads may be used instead). It's basically a shortcut to avoid having to make good the plaster or get plasterers in.

If the sealant is peeling off easily then i'd remove it and redo it properly. You need a low -modulus frame sealant (not the same as the stuff around the edge of the bath) for this sort of job.

The trim is often removeable (depends what it was stuck with) - though you would be lucky to get it off in one piece without breakage.

Anyway i don't follow, why does it means retiling the kitchen?

Andy

continualdiamond

Thanks andrew-b that makes a lot of sense now.

I am assuming it would mean re tiling the kitchen as the 'cloaking' goes around the whole window and kitchen door which means its stuck to plaster above it all, tiles around the window and door and stuck to floor tiles on the kitchen floor.

The kitchen unfortunately was re tiled over existing tiles by the previous owners. So if we took the 'cloaking' off i don't know what we'd be left with underneath. I guess we'd have to remove the cloaking only when we knew plastering was an option.

The bathroom and 2nd bedroom do not look too bad with this cloaking around it, but it looks funny in the kitchen to have this as i called it thick UPVC border stuck onto your kitchen tiles.

andrew-b

If it ain't broke don't fix it? Underneath you'll probably find the edge of the two layers of tiles and a gap between them and frame. But the tile edge will probably be a ragged edge which would explain why they cloaked it in the first place. Until you remove it you have no idea what's under there for sure so I'd put up with it until you want to retile and just make the sealant good where need be.

Andy

continualdiamond

Good advice andrew-b will buy some proper sealant liked you mentioned earlier.