Liquid Flash Zip System Expiration Time
eagleeyeshawk
| Posted in General Questions on
I bought some zip liquid flash from Amazon. I can’t seem to find the expiration date on the tube. Builder gave me some from local lumberyard and it has a number on the bottom of can. This number is missing from the Amazon tube. Should I just return the Amazon tube? Zip warranty seems to explicitly state product must be used 12 months from manufacture date. Which I can’t find on the tube. Not sure if it’s still okay to use. I mean can this stuff really expire? Thanks for reading
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For something as critical as that I would not get it through Amazon. Amazon is just a marketplace for resellers — not much different from eBay.
Someone could have got a pallet of expired tubes for free, now they're selling them after they rubbed off the expiration. It's possible it's not even the real product. For things that are temperature sensitive, you also have no idea if they were stored properly.
I would only use Amazon these days for select items that were not a critical piece to my house — maybe a phone charger or similar, lol.
"I would only use Amazon these days for select items that were not a critical piece to my house — maybe a phone charger or similar, lol."
Ironically you pointed to one of the worst and often most dangerous items you can buy if it turns out to be counterfeit. Look up the number of fires started from junky chargers or bogus batteries. I really wish Amazon would clean up their act on this stuff.
Good point, haha. A lot of electrics are missing UL certification.
Huber deliberately sells their product on Amazon, so it's absolutely a valid place to buy from.
Unfortunately, Amazon co-mingles the same SKU in warehouses regardless of who provided it, so there is opportunity for things to go wrong.
If you have questions, talk to Huber. If Huber says it's no good, return to Amazon. Ultimately, for some Zip products, Amazon is a better retailer than even some well-stocked lumber yards.
Done. I’ll just return the tube.
Just curious though. How to interpret the number at the bottom of the tube from the lumber yard?
This is the number on the bottom of my zip flashing from the lumber yard?
136908-21287
Too bad they can’t have a “expired by” or “best used by” date
Talk to Huber. They are very helpful.
If you look carefully in the price box under the "buy now" buttons, you'll see two lines, one says "ships from" and the other says "sold by". Pay attention to those two lines on any critical items. If it says something like "ships from: Amazon", and "sold by: supercrazydeals123", then you should probably be suspicious. If it says "sold by: Amazon", you're usually reasonably safe -- and at least Amazon is pretty good about returns. If it says "sold by:" the manufacturer, or a supply house that regularly sells these kinds of products, you're probably fine.
If I saw a building product sold by a building supply company, and shipped from either that same company or Amazon, I'd probably be more confident that the product would be good. It's the third-party "deal" vendors, and other unscrupulous knockoff peddlers, that are usually the problem. Many vendors just use Amazon as a sort of oursourced storefront and warehousing operation, so don't rule those places out just because they happen to be selling through Amazon.
Bill
so your tube was manufactured in mid October 2021
I just saw this post on the sidebar, and thought I'd share a few things I've learned this year:
It does expire. The 28 oz caulk tubes get a cured "plug" on the tip end (visible after cutting off the end of the tube to open), which can be removed with a nail/pick/etc. It also starts getting chunky from the plunger end. I have definitely got out-of-date tubes from a local supplier without knowing, and have had to throw the last 1/3 of the tube away because it doesn't apply or tool properly. It was a year out of date, almost exactly, and had been stored in normal indoor conditions.
Huber has a document to decode the date code on the caulk tubes and sausage packs:
https://www.huberwood.com/technical-library/how-to-read-zip-system-liquid-flash-date-code