Decorators caulk for sealing internal windows??

Pipkin

We live in a lovely house which, sadly, has very draughty windows, which makes for a long cold winter. I'm sitting here with 2 jumpers a blanket and heating on and its still cold! 'We have had workmen round before to fix them but all they did was reapply silicone sealant which very quickly split and back came the draught. I haven't the heart to fight with them to try and get some other kind of repair from the housing association, so I wondered if there was something we could do ourselves. I came across some posts elsewhere about decorators caulk which is a flexible filler and seems the perfect answer. Can anyone advise? The gaps are round the internal window and door frames, not huge gaps but the wind whistles through them and since there seems to be some kind of movement silicone just splits eventually, however I don't want to use the caulk and ruin anything, so need to know I'm doing the right thing. Thanks in advance for your help!

Norman_Castle

I've used it. It works. Cheap enough to re-apply when needed.

Pipkin

Thanks for your reply Norman, I appreciate it!

mchale

I think you will find silicone is more flexible than decorators caulk, so doubt if it will be any good, depending on size of gap, expanding foam might be better, but may not look good

arbrighton

It really isn't that flexible and you can't paint over it as we discovered on first go at sprucing up our old and neglected house last year. It's shrunk and or split in a number of places, e.g. at the side of the stairs

nickj_2

if done properly and using a good quality silicone sealer will be better than caulk

andyhop

Frame sealant is what should have been used. Over paintable aswell

southcoastrgi

caulk is no good for this at all unless the outside is sealed first, if you have wind then rain will get in there too, it needs sealing on the outside

Paul_the_Painter

Frame sealant and decorators caulk are over-paintable, silicone is not. Frame sealant is water resistant, as is silicone, decorators caulk is not. "Gun" is about £3-6.

I'd use frame sealant, and it's cheap enough that you can just chuck in a bit more as and when required. Seal from both sides when it's been dry for a bit ideally. You are looking at about £3.00 for a tube of frame sealant.

Watch out when buying that you don't buy the bigger "trade" tubes, as they don't fit the cheap domestic guns.

Pipkin

I'm a bit confused now!

I thought that decorators caulk WAS flexible (from what I have read), and paintable over too, unlike silicone, which was why I was looking to use it. Silicone is what the workmen used before and it was definitely no use as it just split really badly, really quickly.

They aren't huge gaps in the windows, so they are not big enough to use foam etc on, but they are big enough to let the wind come through and make certain parts of the house very cold indeed...the front door for example has hairline gaps that you can see daylight through! it's almost as if the frame has not been put together properly (and that is after it being "fixed") - the window has the same hairline gaps but you cannot see daylight through them. There definitely isn't any water getting in through these gaps, whereas there was with the door - we used to get ice INSIDE the door frame on a winters morning (dont get that anymore since they have been *fixed*, but not all the gaps have been addressed.)

The outside of the windows was re sealed by the workmen, at least the bit underneath the window sill, but who knows whats really going on there.

Not sure what to do now! will investigate frame sealant.

nickj_2

go to your local builders mechant , tell them what you want and they will be able to give you the right stuff you need