How To Make Gaps Under Baseboards Disappear With Caulking 

Really appreciate the presented contrast of matching the floor vs. the base board.

Thank you in general for taking the time to make all these videos. Super appreciate you sharing your knowledge and expertise!

The gaps on my baseboard molding never bothered me until I watched this video😂. Thanks, now I got some work to do. Great video though.

If a shoe is not warranted, whenever I install base boards, I have always done it the "hard right way". I scribe my base boards to the uneven floor. I use a hand planer first , than belt sander. I make sure that I I beveled "angled" back towards the wall with the planer, thus I only need to sand a little to get to my scribe line up to ~ 1/32 error, then caulk Note there is an old saying among old timers. " Any tradesman can cut a board and install it square, level and plumb, But if you could take a "crooked board" and install it square, level and plumb, and in the same plane on a "crooked wall", then you are a craftsman." When I worked as a carpenter, I got fired from almost every job, for "doing it too slow", but then they would rehire me to "fix the mistakes", I often thanked the other "fast carpenters" for providing me job security... Although, yes I would fix this baseboard the way you suggested, unless the client wanted me to remove and reinstall the baseboard.

Also use about a half a coffee mug of warm water with about 6 drops of dish soap to dip your fingers in prior to each wipe. The caulk won’t stick to your fingers and makes a much smoother caulking job.

Awesome. That looks amazing. I did a pretty bad caulk job in a test closet. This is what I will do on the main floor. Thank you a million.

Matching the caulking color with the floor is a great idea. Thank you!

Excellent and timely for me. Well done.

I’ve been a carpenter since 1977. I just learned a trick of the trade. I like the sharpie line on the caulking tube.

Great advice as usual… the bloopers are the best!

Thanks I live in an apartment and we had bug’s coming through the baseboards and the complex Guys came in without a caulk gun (just squeezing the tube by hand) and did a crap job around the windows so I’m tackling the baseboards this worked great thanks

I've been waiting for a clip like this, I was Getting frustrated about the Gaps in My Skirting boards, all a thing of. The past now, thanks for this Tip.

Great info and you definitely have the moves😮!

Found your channel because my jobsite putting me on punch out in a 20+ floor building. I'll be watching many if not all your vids.

don't do this if you have a floating floor, it will pull apart as soon as you walk on it.

Brilliant. Thanks for doing these videos.

Thank you for these videos!

Quality video, superb instructions and greatly appreciated!

Thanks for the informative channel and tips! Very helpful!

You videos are getting even better. I'm proud you're Canadian.

I enjoyed the vid, but completely unrelated, i love your workshop storage setup. I am planning to redo my workshop storage, and i HATE the fact that most content creators go so fancy and Instagram with their designs. It's a workshop, functional amd simple is the way it should be. No hardwood edging, just simple draws with simple cutout handles. Perfect.

Really great video, great tip!!!

this is how I've always done it.. EXCEPT! matching the caulk color to the floor instead of the baseboard! how did I never think of that.. makes total sense!

I must say, that is a great method, which I am now going to use

Great instructional video!!

Wow, I would have never guessed to use the same color as the floor. Great tip!

This is magic. Thank you!

I've been staring at the gaps between my baseboards and the floor for weeks, lamenting how I could fill them in. Your video was absolutely genius! I've been running around the house with all the supplies you suggested and filling in the gaps like a pro (also thanks to your video). My family thinks I'm crazy, but I'm thrilled to bits to be able to do this. Thank you so much for taking the time to create these helpful videos.

I would NEVER have thought of matching the floor color rather than the baseboard color. Obviously, the floor color is 1000 times better.

A flexible shoe mold looks nice and adds a nice finish.

Perfect video, I've been wondering about doing this and RU-vid read my mind and recommended me this video! Didn't search/shop for anything either. Just been thinking about it!

I love all your knowledge and tips. Could i suggest a video or two on dealing with stained or bare wood where paint can be covered up?

this was really really good

Excellent... Thanks!

Worked like a charm! Thanks!

Niceeeee!!!! Love your Spence of humor at the end😂❤

Thanks!

Great video, thanks bro.

Thank you very much

Thank you : )

This was so helpful! Thank you! Now I can seal up my apartment baseboards so pests can't come in 😅

Great technique. I find caulking tile floors with color-matched grout caulk to work great using this technique... especially since the gaps at the grout joints show way more than the tile sections themselves. It helps blend in the tile joints and ties in the floor to the base molding. For me, anything less than 1/16" is never going to be noticed by anyone (but you - haha). I try to bend my baseboard down to match the floor as best possible when installing. Scribing base is a royal pain and takes a ton of time to get right.

I don't know about Dynaflex, but if Big Stretch is left unpainted, it will gather dust like crazy that you can never get off. It really requires painting.

My wife and I finished our own basement and we did have gaps under the baseboard when we installed it. It seemed like a no brainer to just caulk the edges to make the gaps disappear. Maybe I should became a RU-vid star too! We have used color matching caulk as well.

Great video thanks!!!! 🤩🤩🤩🤩 Unfortunately I can't find elastomeric sealant in the shop, can I use acrylic silicone like Pattex? (yellow or brown in my case) or would it last a short time?

Your ends are so funny!

This looks like it works nice on straight lines but how would you make inside and outside corners look nice and neat? How about around door casings?

👍👍👍.Thank you

i have a sculpted porcelain tiles that look like real stone, there are areas that there is no way i could get the base board flush. i have tried a couple different times to caulk them. I may try this method. one spot in particular drives me nuts. good advise on tyring to match the floor color instead of the baseboard color. that may be tough too, but worth a try

This is a good homeowner tip. but if you are a pro, you just gotta be scribing your base to the floor. Or follow up with a shoe that can flex over the gaps.

use paintable silicone. always the best choice. personally i would never try to mach the floor, i would go for the panel color. as the calk is going vertical to the panel, and not horizontal. Your calking job is also hollow, i would make it straight. we have a little cheap tool called a "cheese" it's a rubber square, instead of using the fingers. for perfection spray a light coat of soap water on it, to not make a mess.

When our new hardwood floors were installed they left a gap between the floor and the baseboard at the doorways of one-half to three-quarters of an inch. Since this would be too large to simply caulk, what do you suggest in order to fix this? Thanks for your suggestions.

I wish to add a new plynth/kickboard under a new integrated dishwasher. The floor in front is not level so the kickboard will need adjustment. Without a shelf to use to scribe the floor level onto the kickboard, how can I get this level? Any tips gratefully received!

Man love your videos!! But please do a video on scribing baseboards instead of caulking them! We don’t ever caulk baseboards. There’s a cool scribe tool called a “thingamajig”it the best scribe tool I’ve ever used for finishing carpentry.

Magical!!!

Thanks for the video. It is timely. I noticed the gap as an issue only a few hours ago and was thinking about how to fix it.

New sub here!! Thanks for great video!!

Wonder if it's same procedure if spacing is on the floor, renovate the space, but kept the old floor and I have little space between the floor and the trim

If you bought the 30, couldnt you buy a 21 milwaukee mag and change? At my local HD replacement magazines are on clearance

I have never seen caulking the baseboards to the floor before

Nice video - pity about the hair (hiding under the hat?). this tip is a great solution I was looking for in the bathroom to resolve the seam between tiles on the bath and tiled floor. Thank you.

Keep the gap handy for sweeping your dust under 😉

Since the floor is "floating" won't the caulk secure it and not let it expand and contract with the change in temperature? Or will the caulking crack?

I have this exact problem after installing new flooring.

If you put pressure on the top of the base before you shoot it to the wall you can eliminate the gaps on the install of the base.

I think the white caulking looks better. The floor-match caulking gives the impression there's still a gap there.

I personally would use quarter round, but if I had to caulk I'd use a Cramer profilng tool. I used it to caulk the toilets to the floor and it was magical. No tape needed.

Does someone know if this is suitable for wooden flooring in combination with wooden baseboards?

How does the Dynaflex compare to the Alex Plus?

Thanks for the vid. I used an engineered hardwood flooring that has quite a bit of grain (Not a flat surface) and tried using tape but I couldn't get the tape to follow the contour of the grainy surface so it left little tunnels under the tape that the caulking would get into. any suggestions for how to handle this? I am not bad at caulking, so tried no tape and finger method, but the same thing happened since couldn't get my finger to close up on the grain either.

What is this fascination with a bit of gappage? Being a fussy boat builder type, I did the trim in my house to my satisfaction. Turns out I should have painted it too because even after requesting NO CAULK due to it always looking dirty after a while, the painter still caulked it. Six years later I am starting to feel the need for a razor blading of all the caulked seams, even though the painter did a fairly decent job. That all said, this is great advice for "industry standard" trim jobs.

BIG STRETCH - "It just stretches." i wish more things were marketed like this

I dont used tape at all my caulking gun and my hand do it all really nice

4:59 I watched this part like 5x and it still appears to have a large gap. I know it doesn't, since it's brown, but this title says make the gaps "disappear" and they don't have the appearance of being any different

cool video

New to this kind of thing, but what happens with the movement of the floor when the wood contracts or dilates during the year? Wouldn't this get in the way of the movement?

i don't know man.... this method seems WAY more complicated and involving WAY MORE mess than how i accomplish this. I literally have the same caulking gun BTW, love it. I've been doing A to Z remodeling of old trailer homes for the past 3+ years now and i can caulk the baseboards and door and window trim for the entire home in less than about an hour. One long swipe down the board no matter the length, then one swipe at about a 45 degree angle with one finger and that's it. comes out perfect, no messy over caulking to have to clean up or anything. Most of it is due to actively regulating the pressure on the caulking gun trigger and speed at which i drag the gun across the gap. I guess just from doing this for so long you just become proficient and for lack of a better work learn the "feel" of how to apply it efficiently. Or perhaps i'm just built differently . LOVE the content! one of my top 3 YT channels that really helped me build everything i have learned in the past years ;)

I would not use caulk under the baseboards on a floating floor. as it is designed to float, to move with expansion and contraction. If necessary, level the floor or scribe and cut or plane to fit. If the floor is in a wet room, like a bathroom or laundry room, and expansion is not significant, use clear calk to seal. and the bottom line of the baseboard remains straight and does not appear to curve to follow the floor.

Could you use wood filler instead of caulk?

Scribe it with a compass then trim the baseboard. That's what the pros do. I did. Works like a charm. Just follow the contour of the floor.

Does wood expand and contract…would this….hinder that?

1/4 round works wonders.

What kind of caulking can be used? Silicon?

A problem with caulking baseboards (something I did once and never again) is you need to do the whole house - whether there are gaps or not - otherwise it looks uneven; as though you are trying to hide you mistakes.

I'm going to be installing PVC baseboards on top of a fairly rough concrete floor. We already bought white caulk. Maybe I'll try to exchange them for gray. This area will be used for dog training and boarding and may be hosed/mopped out frequently. I'm thinking silicone caulk would be best. And the floor may get painted. I assume we should do that first.

How do you cut the tip of the caulk tube? I know with a razor or the cutter in the gun, but I mean how much do you trim off and at what angle? Thanks.

no "save" option for this video either? need one (as i am getting ready to do this in my house) please? thank you!

I like to wet my finger before I swipe it. It seems to make it glide along much smoother.

Great timing for your post. Having 550 sq. feet of laminate hardwood installed next week. What are your thoughts or what would you recommend for a compact caulking gun? Thank you sir!

The magic if you will... Is just the fact that the caulking matches the floor. Thanks for the tip.

What about using clear caulking?

You can't beat scribing the baseboard to the floor, that's the professional way.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I think it looked better just having the gap. The caulking really stands out IMO.

Question: Why wouldn't you just sand down the points of contact so the board lies perfectly flush to the floor? Is this bad?

And WHY have I been cutting the tip on the tubes straight all these years? 😩 Thankfully I haven't been using any type of caulking regularly (obviously 🤦🏻‍♀️), but the amount of time and excess of product I've wasted! 🤣 Anyway - thank you for another great video!

This came at a good time. I need to caulk a few gaps.

Why not just CLEAR caulk? It’s almost invisible especially under shoe board. I’m using Clear, am I missing something? Any reason not to use Clear?

Use the same tape technique but instead of caulk, Bondo the gap square with a putty knife and then prime/paint to match the baseboard.

I lived in a newly built house for years and never knew until the last year that under the floorboard and carpet was an inch gap outside. Removed it for some reason and saw sunlight. The Winters were cold and ants in warm weather. Happy a snake did not slither in because they liked to nest in decorative rocks on the outer side of the wall

You’re a good dude but I can definitely still see the gap after, it’s super noticeable