STOP Throwing Away Dried-Up Caulk Tubes - Make One Last All Year

There is a tube of caulk on a shelf in your garage right now with a hard plug in the end of it, and you have written it off. It probably isn't dead. In forty years as head custodian at one public school I threw away exactly one case of tubes before somebody taught me to cut one open, and I never threw away another. Here is what is in this one. The dried part only goes about two thirds of the way down the nozzle and then it stops, because a nozzle is long and narrow and the air runs out before it reaches the body of the tube. Cut the nozzle off at the metal collar and look for yourself. Below that plug the caulk is almost always still soft. Why a nail or a screw in the tip has never worked, and why a screw is the worst of the two. The free thing that actually seals a tube, which is going to sound backwards until you see it, because it is the plug itself. How to put a new spout on a tube whose nozzle you just cut off, and how I went forty years without ever buying one. And the last one, which is the reason your tube was already in trouble before you carried it to the shelf. It happens in your hand, about ninety seconds after you finish the bead, and there is a tab on the back of your caulking gun that stops it. Nothing here costs more than a few dollars and most of it costs nothing at all. I was never a contractor and I never said I was. I was one man with one building and a form to fill out every time I wanted something, and that is a very good teacher. #HomeMaintenance #Caulking #Household