Tile Shower Repair advice needed

[brutal]

I need to do a little repair in the master bath shower.

4'x3' shower with an acrylic(?) base. 6x6 Ceramic tile walls, sliding glass door. Old brass hardware.

Some of the caulk (more on that later) started to discolor/mold. We had two tiles low and outside the door start to pop out. Appears to be a poorly done previous repair.

I removed the door and rails, etc. and have a couple 3-4 edge tiles safely removed and one full tile from the bottom corner I haven't yet removed (so far I think) that needs to be redone.

My plan is to cut in as far as the backer board (only drywall?) is viable and patch some blue/green board in and fiber tape to rebuild the backing. Then reinstall the couple tiles I pulled off.

I plan to grout saw the rest and regrout it. Not looking forward to that and may have to buy another power tool to do it.

I may clean up the doors and reinstall (most likely at this point), I may buy another. Stuff is old, bright brass. Modern brushed nickel frameless hinged door set (46") looks to be about $600-700

First question. The corners and bottom have "caulk" that is rock hard. It's not grout. WTF is this stuff?

Second question. What is the recommended product to use in the corners and bottom where the tile meets the base? Personally, I'm not a fan of Silicone caulk. Primarily because nothing sticks to cured silicone, even fresh silicone. Seems anything that's done with silicone, should it ever need to be redone, is a mess and never seals properly again.

Third question. While I'm not really ready to drop $$$ into it right now because I can't really afford it, and not sure I'm up for either the tile work in skill or time, although I have done it in the past, what might an approximate cost be to just redo the whole thing assuming I do the demo and put up new backer and do most of the prep? It's about 80 sq ft. Looks like about $10/sq for the tiles alone?

Open to ideas and suggestions, but primarily looking for help on questions 1 and 2.

[jslo]

1st thing is, I wouldn't assume it's not grout. I'm doing one now, and have done many, that is/was grout and virtually impossible to get out without a grinder with a diamond blade. Secondly they make the matching caulks in all the grout colors (sanded and non-sanded). They will require some periodic maintenance though. I have also used a product called Latasil that I've been pretty happy with when exact color match to grout is not an issue.

[brutal]

Thanks for the advice on Latisil, I'll check it out.

Def not grout. There's grout under it. Although I thought grout at a plane change was a nono.

I looked online at hinged shower doors again today. I was looking at smaller doors earlier. Ouch.

Appears to me now the base is fiberglass gelcoat. Somebody scratched the shit out of it below the door frame. I should be able to resurrect it with my boat refinishing setup as it doesn't appear to be through the gelcoat.

bump, anyone else?

[Irving]

SuperiorDG on here does custom bathroom glass.

[jslo]

You are correct, grout should not be used for base to wall seal. I suppose some could have used an epoxy based substance. Maybe to cover a crack in the corner of the pan? Good luck

[Grant H.]

SuperiorDG on here does custom bathroom glass.

Good to know.

I am going through some of the same stuff as the OP in my master bath as well.

[Bmac]

HI.

1. That hard crusty stuff (whatever it is) should scrape off easily with a screw driver when you have room to get at it.

2. Silicone is the way to go. I hate silicone also. the problem most people have is they treat it like caulking, it takes 3X as long to make silicone look nice. LOTS of wet tooling. The good news is they have caulk that matches your grout perfectly and is fairly easy to work.

3. $10 sf tile!?!?! Holy smokes brother! Do you have little italian kids swimming it here from the Vatican?

Floor and Decor has some real ni ce stone for $8 sf, regular for less than $6, just to name a big box. I just got Carrara 6X14 wall for 2.99 sf.

I want to do your bath, let me know. We do great tile work.
Thanks for the shower door lead!

[haygre]

Been doing this for a living for almost 30 yrs, although now do almost exclusively commercial(more $$ in it). My guess, the hard stuff is probably Polyseamseal Adhesive caulk. It was used a lot by tile-setters years ago. 3 little secrets about silicone(don't tell anyone); you have to scrape existing off with a razor scraper(widely known), 2 you can clean off excess with a rag doused in alcohol(messy, but works great), 3(this is the one few people know about) once you run your bead down the corner, before any tooling with your finger or whatever, spray the whole bead with Windex. There is a surfactant in the Windex that won't let anything stick to whatever it's in contact with(think, the face of your tile you don't want silicone on). If you have any voids after tooling,need to clean with the alcohol before touching up, as the Windex won't even allow the silicone to stick to the wet silicone. Hope this helps.

[OneGuy67]

I had SuperiorDG do my master bath shower with frameless glass a couple of years ago and it was and is, still amazing. I highly recommend him. Price was great and his workers were top notch, fast, friendly and cleaned up after themselves quickly.

[brutal]

Thanks guys.

One of the reasons I dislike silicone is that it does require mechanical removal once cured. Nothing seems to touch the stuff.