Silicone vs. MS Polymer vs. Acrylic: Sealant Material Guide For Floor Adhesive

When it comes to having an interior that not only looks good but performs just as great, the things that are taken into the highest consideration are the visible elements like the tile pattern, the grain of the wood, or the color of the skirting boards. However, what brings all of these visible elements together is an adhesive or a sealant, making sure that the final build comes out to be durable and matches the overall aesthetics of the interior.

This is where choosing the right sealant matters because it does more than just join two things together. It defines how well the overall build resists moisture, improves longevity, and accommodates movement. When it comes to choosing the right sealant, in the market, you may find the three most common options available: Acrylic Sealant, Silicone Sealant, and MS Polymer Sealant. This is where the buyers usually get confused, which increases the chances of them choosing the wrong option for their requirements. This is why in this article, we have covered all the differences, qualities, and materials to help you determine which solution is best for your flooring project.

1. Why Floor Adhesives Matter in Interior Decoration

Interior decorations are defined by flooring, which includes tiles or planks, and what keeps them bonded together is floor adhesives. They not only ensure that the structure remains firm but adds on to the overall aesthetics of the interior design. So if you choose the wrong type of adhesive for your use case, there are several expensive problems mentioned below that can degrade your interior design:

• Structural Failure: There are temperature changes around the world, and with those temperature changes, the flooring contracts or expands. So if the adhesive is too rigid, it will crack and cause the tiles to lift or the wood to warp.

• Water Damage: In kitchens or bathrooms where the floor is constantly in contact with moisture, the risk of water seepage increases. So if a floor adhesive can't resist water, the moisture will creep beneath the flooring, leading to mold and rot.

• Aesthetic Degradation: A sealant should complement the flooring aesthetics to ensure a fully blended look. A low-quality sealant becomes yellow over time, shrinks and creates gaps, and accommodates dust, which further degrades the overall aesthetics of the flooring.

2. Main Types of Indoor Floor Adhesives

There are three main types of flooring adhesive that you may commonly find in the market, each having different material properties, making them suitable for different types of flooring needs. The three types are mentioned below with their pros, cons, and best use case scenarios to help you identify which type is the best for your flooring needs.

(1) Acrylic Sealant Floor Adhesives

Acrylic sealant is the most common type of adhesive found in the market. It is a water-based sealant, making it easy to use and a cost-effective option for DIY uses.

• The Pro: Because Acrylic sealants are water-based, they can be easily painted once dried out, making them perfect for blending in with skirting boards or colored walls. Furthermore, using them is incredibly easy, as tooling and smoothing out can be done with a damp finger.

• The Con: The major disadvantage of acrylic sealant being water-based is that once the sealant has dried out, water evaporates, making it shrink. This causes cracks and tiles to loosen, and when exposed to moisture, the water may seep in.

Best Use:

Acrylic sealants can be used in flooring where the problem of moisture is minimal, like bedrooms or living rooms. These sealants can also be used in sealing the gaps between the floor and the skirting board, where painting the sealant is crucial to blend it with the overall aesthetics. 

(2) Silicone Sealant Floor Adhesives

If you are looking for something durable that resists moisture like a pro, silicon sealant might be the option you are looking for. Unlike water-based sealants, silicon sealants feature synthetic rubber that is made from inorganic elements like silicon, giving it the ability to not only resist water but also make it highly flexible and UV stable, further enhancing the durability of the silicon sealant.

• The Pro: The synthetic rubber makes silicon sealant waterproof and offers excellent elasticity with great UV protection. This ensures that, due to extreme temperature changes, the flooring stays intact without cracking or lifting off. Furthermore, due to water resistance, the growth of mold and mildew can be prevented.

• The Con: One of the major disadvantages of silicon sealant not being water-based is that painting over silicon becomes next to impossible. If you try, the paint will bead up and flake off.

Best Use:

Due to excellent resistance to water and moisture, silicon sealant can be used in floorings in bathrooms, kitchens, or toilets that are constantly soaked in moisture.

(3) MS Polymer Sealant Floor Adhesives

MS polymer sealant, also known as hybrid sealant, offers a blend of the durability of silicon sealant and the paintability of acrylic. This is the reason MS polymer is now becoming a preferred choice amongst users who want the best of both worlds for their floor adhesive.

• The Pro: The major advantage of MS polymer sealant is that it sticks to almost anything. It is flexible, waterproof, and UV-resistant, making it a durable option for buyers who want paintability and durability in a single product.

• The Con: The cost of MS polymer sealant is generally high amongst the other two types, while also proving to be a challenge for the floor installer to squeeze it out of the gun compared to silicon.

Best Use:

MS polymer can be used for heavy-duty floor adhesion, gluing down floorboards, sealing joints in high-traffic areas, and working with luxury natural stone tiles.

3. Silicone vs. MS Polymer vs. Acrylic Sealant Comparison

4. When to Choose Which?

Once you have understood the properties that each type of floor adhesive has to offer, it's important to consider what applications each type has to help you better understand what type of adhesive is best for your particular use case. 

Scenario A: The Living Room Renovation 

If you are looking to renovate your living room, installing new tiles or a wooden floor, and putting up new skirting boards, you want the gaps to look seamless, perfectly blending in with the aesthetics. 

• Choice: Acrylic Sealant

• Why? For living room renovations, you don’t need to spend a fortune just to join the flooring together. This is where acrylic sealants shine, as they offer a cheap solution for flooring adhesive while also allowing painting on the skirting board and the sealant line to match the aesthetics of the wall.

Scenario B: The Bathroom Floor Edge

When you want to install flooring in bathrooms, join bathtubs, or any other sanitary fitting, you should make sure that the sealant is very waterproof.

• Option: Silicon Sealant

• Why? The bathroom space is always wet, and that is why you require silicon sealant. It has the ideal waterproofing properties. Acrylic would just dissolve or shape in such wet conditions. Moreover, MS polymer is not the right choice to use in bathroom flooring, as it is costly.

Scenario C: Down Hardwood or Stone Flooring Gluing.

To glue down hardwood or stone flooring, you require an adhesive that is durable and can easily bond with marble tiles directly to the concrete subfloor.

• Option: MS Polymer Sealant.

• Why? In the case of attaching marbles or tiles to hardwood or stone, this may be a little difficult, since silicon cannot keep heavy objects in place, and this makes them more likely to pop out. Here is where MS Polymer Sealant comes in. It is an excellent adhesive for heavy objects. It keeps the hardwood or stone in place and also allows the wood to stretch without popping or warping.

Scenario D: The "Green" Building Project

In case you are doing an indoor project and the smell, health, and safety are a major issue, then you would require an adhesive with Low VOC emissions, and that is odorless.

• Option: MS Polymer Sealant or Acrylic for sustainability.

• Why? MS polymer sealants are solventless. Their use is safe because they do not produce any smell and can be used in indoor projects. Moreover, acrylic sealants are also low in chemical emissions (Low VOCs), so both are safe to use indoors in unventilated spaces.

Conclusion

Ultimately, it is up to you to make the final decision because the correct decision will make the flooring last a year or a lifetime.

• Select Acrylic in cosmetic, dry, paintable finishes.

• Select Silicone in sanitary, wet, and glass applications.

• Select MS Polymer when bonding high-strength, versatility, and natural stone.

After deciding on your adhesive flooring requirements and the type of sealant to use, the final and most important thing to do is to select the right manufacturer that does not compromise on quality and knows the needs of its customers, so that they can get the right product. We would recommend Kastargrout. You may require the economical ease of Acrylic Latex Caulk, the hygienic safety of Silicone Sealant, or the sophisticated technology of MS Sealant. Kastargrout offers professional-grade products that will keep your flooring superb, safe, attractive, and enduring.

FAQs

Q1: Can I apply Silicone Sealant to stick down wooden floorboards?

Silicon sealant would not be a good choice to glue down wooden floorboards. Silicon sealant is flexible, and the wood can expand and contract, but it does not provide the structural bonding to hold the wood in place. In gluing down floorboards, MS Polymer Sealant may be a more suitable choice since it has the flexibility and tensile strength to hold the wood in place.

Q2: Why did my Acrylic sealant crack after a few weeks?

Acrylic sealant is water-based, and when that water evaporates, it becomes hard when dried out. So if the gap you filled with acrylic sealant is too large or the flooring expanded or contracted due to a change in temperature, acrylic most likely would have cracked. Our recommendation would be to go towards a high elasticity sealant like Silicone or MS Polymer.

Q3: Is MS Polymer better than Silicone?

Yes, generally, MS polymer is considered better than silicon because it is paintable, stronger, and sticks to damp surfaces, which cannot be achieved by silicon. However, silicon is cheaper and considered better for sanitary ware like toilets, sinks, or bathtubs due to a shinier finish and slightly better waterproofing. 

Q4: Can I apply new sealant over old sealant?

No, this is not recommended as sealants will not bond with the surface, requiring you to remove the old sealant first before applying a new one. However, MS Polymer sealant offers better adhesion, providing it with the ability to stick to almost anything. Although we would still highly recommend cleaning the surface for better results. 

Q5: Which sealant is best for marble flooring?

You must use MS Polymer or a specific Non-Staining Silicone. Standard silicone contains oils that can seep into the pores of marble and granite, leaving dark stains that are impossible to remove. Kastargrout's MS Sealant is safe for natural stone.