Choosing the Right Caulking for the Job: Caulk Like a Pro!

today i'm going to be talking about caulking i do get a lot of questions what caulking i use to caulk over my tape and what caulking i use on exteriors when it comes to painting i just got a call today in our at our store paint like supply go i wanted to know what caulking i use on the exterior of the houses when i paint houses when i'm filling holes or nail heads so i'm going to talk a little bit about the caulking that i use inside and outside in what caulking i use to over tape so if you want to know what caulking i use stay tuned for this video [Music] [Applause] so the caulking i do use is tower caulking i'm going to talk a little bit about you know why i use this product first and now i'll tell you caulking is a really annoying thing when you get caulking that is not manufactured and not put in the tubes properly and it never used to be an issue up until about five years ago there was only a few companies that had i would say really crappy manufacturing processes where they would get air bubbles in their tubes of caulking and i'll talk a little bit about what the air bubble does and how annoying that is and and it is extremely common in some of the best caulkings out there and it's some of the paint companies um one of the suppliers that i buy from uh all their caulking is um apparently not manufactured very well and not the caulking itself but the process of putting the caulking into the tube that causes to have air bubbles in it now if you have an air bubble anywhere in a tube of caulking what that causes is it causes the caulking to leak caulking even if you're using a dripless gun so it's going to leak caulking because of the air bubble inside the tube and um the difference in air pressure or something like that i'm not an engineer but it's it's really weird so when you squeeze the trigger there's this um the the pressure feels a little bit different on the handle you've got to squeeze and release and it's a little bit harder to squeeze the caulking and get it out when there is an air bubble in there but eventually that air bubble is going to get to the end it will work itself out and when it does come out the end of the caulking tube it's what we call a pop and because it makes a popping sound the bubble is coming out and caulking usually splatters when that pop actually occurs and occasionally it splatters in your face and that's why it's extremely annoying once the bubble comes out the caulking will never drip again on a dripless gun but i've had people purchase from us these expensive dripless guns and the caulking still drips and they say the gun is not gripless and it's not actually the gun it's the caulking tube that has an air bubble in it and so you want to find a manufacturer that has a really good manufacturing process that doesn't have air bubbles in their caulking so with all the tubes of caulking that i've used all the different manufacturers out there i'd say the majority probably 90 of them have a lot of air bubbles in them and it's very frustrating tower caulking is the one caulking i finally found that it's very rare to ever see i've actually never gotten an air bubble in tower caulking before and so i want a caulking that's a manufacture as a manufacturing process that does not have air bubbles in them because it's very annoying now let's talk about the caulking itself in the tube and why i like tower caulking and why i use it so i'm going to talk a little bit about the caulking and tooling so tooling is uh is a term that i use when you're applying the caulking you've got to go back and you're either working it with a tool you're working with a finger to get it to smooth out and look like you want it to look the caulking that comes in tower it's very consistent every single time i use it and it tools very well so it has the right consistency it's very smooth it's not too thin and it's not too thick so i don't have to wet my finger too much and um to actually tool it and get it to smooth out well and that's very important i really like the consistency of the product and i really like how it feels another thing that i like when it comes to a caulking a good caulking i only use really high-end caulkings you can buy caulking for a tube for a dollar this stuff is significantly more expensive than that but one of the things you're not going to get with cheap caulking is the ability for it to bond really well to two edges or two surfaces you want a caulking that's gonna have a good adhesive qualities tower is amazing this is an acrylic urethane elastomeric sealant so it bonds very well and it stretches very well one of the worst things is to apply a caulking and then after the first winter come back and it actually separate from one side or actually crack and then you got to go back and do touch-ups so i want a caulking that has good adhesive qualities i want it to be able to stretch and flex because there is typically when you're caulking a crack you're going to have some type of movement that's why the crack is there you have some expansion contraction from heat to cold so from winter to summer there's going to be some movement and cheap caulking usually doesn't bond very well and it doesn't stretch very well and it typically will dry out really fast and eventually crack so i'm always using a lifetime warranty caulking and this is a product from tower right here once again this is an acrylic urethane elastomeric sealant and this is an awesome caulking this is a clear one and this is a white one i do use clear the majority time when i'm caulking over tape there's of some rare incidences if i'm caulking over tape and the tape has been taped onto a white surface i will use a white caulking because white caulking is a little bit thicker than a clear caulking because of the colorant that's added to it it makes it a little bit more viscous and i do like a thicker caulking when it comes to filling cracks but this is the the clear caulking that i use when i'm actually caulking over tape uh using that method if you've seen my videos if you haven't how to get a super laser straight line using frog tape and caulking you know this is what i'm using when it comes to caulking the exterior of a building when i'm doing um residential repaints or commercial repaints i'm using just a white um white caulking from tower now one of the cool things about tower the um the sealant the urethane the acrylic urethane elastomeric sealant is they have a bunch of different colors i think there's like 20 22 different colors if you need um colored caulking so this is a high performance class 25 caulking it does have 50 um joint movement so that means it will expand or contract 50 percent and that's that's quite a bit um this is another caulking this one of the things that i noticed from some of the talking you know over the years is um the plasticizers and caulking will cause what we call shiners in the paint and you'll start to see um a shiner where the caulking is where you've painted over this on the tower caulking right here the technology is it that's in it you will not have any shiners and that could be pretty important um if you're using an expensive paint that does show shiners so the tower caulking is this is a water-based product so it cleans up with water very simple and easy to use and it is paintable i'm always using a paintable caulking there would be rare rare situations that i use 100 silicone but 100 silicone you cannot paint i was just out working on a commercial building where they painted all the seams in the commercial building or they actually caulked all the seams in the metal sided building and they use 100 silicone caulking and you cannot paint over that it's all going to have to be removed so i use water-based latex or acrylic type caulking that cleans up with water and it's got to be paintable and that's what these two products are so there you have it tower caulking this is a gun grade one component high performance caulking that's absolutely amazing i use it for everything i'm doing inside and outside caulking on tape talking on wood caulking on siding it's what i use day in and day out you got to give it a try if you've given it a try let us know what you think about it if you've used it if pops are annoying let us know what caulking should we avoid what caulking out there has a lot of pops in it that are extremely annoying let it um just leave it down in the comments section below if you haven't subscribed to our channel hit the subscribe button hit the notification bell that way you get notified every time we come out with a new video it's free simple easy to do it's never going to cost you a dime it never has never will it's just a simple way to help support us making free videos to teach you and help you on your project we'll see you in our next video