I recently put a spout guard on our bathtub spout to protect my son's head. When I tried to take it off, the guard got stuck. I tugged a few times and finally cut it with a utility knife. Now the spout is lose. It moves about 3/8" left, right, up, down, with little effort. I know that I damaged the caulking. Will re-caulking fix the problem? Have I done permanent damage?

There are two common ways that spouts attach: 1) it screws on to a pipe sticking out of the wall, 2) it slips onto a pipe sticking out of the wall.

With #1, you might have problems

With #2 if you take a mirror and hold it below the spout, you'll see a hole to stick an allen head wrench up there and tighten or loosen the spout. The hole will be at the back against the wall.

If you have the second type, maybe it just slid some off the pipe, and needs the screw to be loosened, caulk behind it first, then slide it back, and retighten the screw.

You may have loosened something up in the wall. But the first question is what kind of tub spout is it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Re-mdlr,

Let's say I have #1.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: aready,

Only way I can think of that it would move if you have door #1 is if you unscrewed it or it's now broken.
Got a picture?

They're usually installed better than to just have caulking hold it strong. Remove the spout and the caulking, enlarge the hole if you can, but not bigger than the diameter of the spout, look inside the wall and see what you have happening.

Maybe someone used a nail to hold the pipe in place and you just loosened the assembly. or maybe the pipe sticking out of the wall is a plastic pipe and you've damaged it and a simple replacement part will fix it.

Dive in, get your feet wet, and since Nike is running out of spokespeople, I'll say it "just do it".

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Re-mdlr,