Welcome to my paradigm:
A family member is *SUPER-ALLERGIC* to ...realistically nearly everything. The allergy baby is also the main DIYer at our house.

We need to seal grout (need= want desperately to seal since using bleach in the future to clean mildew from grout would be terrible planning for life with the allergy baby)

There are readily available silicone sealers with a LOT of terrible solvents that make breathing difficult for weeks! No-go on the commercially available sealers!

I have 100% clear silicone.
I have Citra-solve-- a powerful solvent that won't land -anyone- at my house in the ER.

Can I mix silicone with citra-solve to make a brush-on grout sealer?

How much of each?

If I get no good answers, I'll just try it and let you all know how I failed, so you-all can avoid the same, or maybe my resounding success & my best recipe!

Thanks so much!

As someone who used to be allergic to almost everything, I can tell you that anything that has the ability to seal the grout will likely cause an allergic reaction. The thing is, this is only a problem while the sealer is drying.

Try this:

1. Pick a time when Mr. Allergy can be out of the house for several days.
2. Plan to seal the room and have a fan set in a window blowing out to ventilate.
3. Apply a traditional grout sealer. Let it dry.
4. Once you leave the room, completely seal the door.

This will minimize any odor from the sealer getting into the rest of the house. After a couple of days any odor and chemical residue should be gone. As for having your allergic DIYer apply the sealer - ain't gonna happen. Just basic facts: If you are allergic to something you cannot be near it if it's in a state that you can breath in fumes or be in direct contact.

I will bet that the Citra-Solv, which frankly kicks off my asthma, is going to keep the silicone from curing chemically. you will have a nasty mess that you can't get rid of as a result.

if you're going to try this stuff and we can't stop you, two powerful allergens in the acetic acid and Citra-Solv, at least mix a little batch in the garage and use on some leftover material, just to prove there's a reason nobody has patented this and made out like a bandit.

TY both for the ideas.

I intended to try on scrap first- I've tried my hare-brained ideas on good material too many times!

Really it's not a money making prop-- the avail sealers are not that expensive.

I do know that no one will freak out and die of citra-solve bc we've used it before. I do know that commercial sealer will land at least one person in the hospital.

It's not really feasible to seal off our only bathroom for several weeks, which we'd have to do if we use the prepared sealer. I also am not big on adding something that toxic to my home, even if it were feasible.

I just thought, the sealers are billed essentially as "silicone + solvent" & since I know this is an acceptable solvent for us & since I can get silicone in a relatively pure form, maybe someone had tried this particular hardware hack before and could advise... I guess I get to be the guinea pig on this one. (Who says there are no original ideas anymore, heh?)

there are lots of different silicones, as there are lots of carbon-based compounds.

what commercial sealers use is a liquid silicone thinned to go into the pores. more like Slick50's spray lube in solvent.

nowhere like silicone adhesive, which is artificial rubber.

Preliminary results are in:

I mixed a 1:1 ratio of citra-solve & silicone... it looked *very* thick & not at all like it would penetrate the grout as desired, so I didn't even test it on grout; instead I added another part citra-solve.

I tried (on scrap) the following ratios (citra-solve:silicone)
2:1
3:1
4:1
5:1

ALL of them penetrated the grout, and all appear to repel/bead water after they set. I will test more after some more curing time. IMO, the 3:1 ratio looks most promising. Will update more after further tests.

Thanks!

OK-- the 5:1 and 4:1 seemed to penetrate about 1/16" into the grout (like typical penetrating sealers).

The 3:1 and 2:1 both seemed to sink in very little and mostly sit on top (like typical silicone sealers).

They all cured fine and all repel/ bead standing water for hours/ overnight.

I think to make assurance doubly sure, I'll do 5:1 followed by 2:1 on my actual project. HTH any other dyi moms... & other folks, too C: