I once cleaned my grout with Oxyclean. Fell down several times. That stuff is sooo slippery. And sooo hard to rinse off the floor.

The tile layers didn't seal my grout and I wasn't aware it should have been sealed til several years later when I was trying to buy a grout cleaner and the store man asked if I needed to re-seal it after cleaning it. Huh? Re-seal?

Yes, I did clean it before several years were up but it didn't work well.

Baking soda is very slippery when dry so be careful and mop it up quickly.

My next tile will not have 1/3 inch grout lines. They will be bumped tightly together. Or it'll be solid surface.

Annie

Oh I wish I'd known about this about 10 years ago. My dad hated the vinyl tiles that came with the house so he had tile installed in the kitchen, bathrooms and entryway. They never sealed the grout either.

In his kitchen, he had them put in yellow tile, with white grout. In a short time it was grey grout. Guess who was elected to scrub it and paint the sealer on? I had to get on the floor and scrub each gout-line by hand, wait for it to dry and then apply 2 coats of sealer. Not fun!

I did that several years ago, Erika. It hurt me so badly. Knees and lower back. We have about 500 square feet in the kitchen, breakfast room, laundry, bath and rear entry. Lots of crawling to clean it.

My grout was dove gray and now it's brown. Combination of dog food grease and muddy or greasy shop shoes which hubby refuses to remove when he comes in. Then my cleaning folks would swing the mop over it, pushing dirt into the grout instead of scrubbing it out.

We have a young man hired to help hubby with car repairs and he will do any kind of job we ask. I may ask him to scrub the grout between car jobs.

Annie

 

 

Is there a way to tell if the grout in new tiles has been sealed or not ?

Asking the builder or the tile subcontractor for our new house if they sealed the grout is not an option at this point.

I am not having a fun time trying to figure out what new cleaners to use for these various surfaces that are new to me (huge areas of hardwoods, tiles, granite) etc. I did see in online research about no vinegar usage- I think that was on tiles. Maybe was on the granite too. I forget at the moment. I have been using the Formula 409 Natural Stone cleaner for the granite so far. (Tom is 3/4 moved in. Pookie and I are not moved in yet- need to wait for pollen season to get over so I can open windows and air it out really good first.)

I wonder why vinegar discolors it. I had been thinking about using a mix of vinegar and baking soda since that combo will clean the grease out of a sink trap.

 

I just remembered, too, that we have always mopped the rose colored front entry hall tile with vinegar because everything else we tried left it cloudy. The grout in there looks OK. Just the grout in the kitchen area looks nasty. Same grout, just different colored tile.

Annie

Ring, I don't know if you can tell by looking if it was sealed. I know when I sealed mine I used a narrow paintbrush and any that got on the tile was yellow. It wore off but looked just awful til it did. The man told me that it has to be cleaned well and sealed annually. Ugh, not a fun job for ole ladies, so I haven't done it again.

 

Since the sealer is supposed to prevent absorption, try dripping water on the grout and see if it soaks in or puddles. I'm not sure that is a good enough test.

 

Call a tile seller and ask how to tell if it has been sealed.

Annie

 

Annie- great idea about calling a tile seller.  Our tiles came from three different sources & I am sure any one of them can help me figure this out.  (We purchased our own tiles & specific grout colors per room... but the tile layer supplied the other "basic" supplies- like the shower sloped foundation and backboard etc etc.)  I am guessing he didn't seal, but we shall see.

 

When I googled:  tile maintenance vinegar   ,  I see all kinds of sites at the top recommending vinegar to clean tile.

 

However, further down the list- these sites say it is a no-no.  Here is their reasoning:

 

"Vinegar naturally cleans like an all-purpose cleaner....  It is safe to use on most surfaces and has the added bonus of being incredibly cheap.    Improperly diluted vinegar is acidic and can eat away at tile grout. Never use vinegar on marble surfaces.  "

 

 

"  Avoid sponge mops - Sponge mops or other similar mops can work against you by pushing liquid down into the tile grout.  A string mop used along with a bucket ringer cuts down the amount of liquid able to get into the pores of the grout.  You want the floor wet, not soaked.

 

 

I used to have a Hoover floor cleaner with brushes that rotated fast. It had a tank for the cleaning solution and another for the dirty water. My floor looked better then than at any other time. Problem was, the bottom piece that held the brushes in place kept breaking. Hoover replaced them for free but waiting for them and reinstalling them was so inconvenient.

 

We tossed that machine and bought another and it was defective out of the box so we sent it back.

Dislater also had one but has not mentioned it lately. Hers was still working last I heard.

 

There are many commercial ones for big bucks but this one was only about $150 and worked really well til the plastic broke.

 

I think sucking the dirty cleaning solution out of the grout was why it looked so much better. Mops just push it into the grout and make it worse.

 

I need to invent one that works and has heavier duty parts and sells for the same low price. Yeah, right.

Annie