Save money Wiping yourself
Technique for cleaning the grout by itself, easy and economical.
The ceramics are so beautiful when installed for the first time, but over time the lines of the grout are visibly stained and darkened. Unfortunately, grout cleaning is a difficult task and most professional grout cleaning companies know it.
Professional Grout Cleaning can easily cost hundreds of dollars if you have a large floor space. They finance (literally) the lack of knowledge and the frustrations of the people with the cleaning of the grout.
My friend Jamie has ceramic tiles all over her kitchen, dining area and two bathrooms. When his family bought his new house 7 years ago, the flats were impressive.
Over time, the grout began to get dark and stained, especially in the bathrooms and kitchen. He cleaned the floors regularly using only water with vinegar and a steam mop, which is the best way to keep the tiles clean without accumulation.
Despite their best efforts, the grout still became gloomy. She called and received a free quote from a local floor cleaning company and almost fainted when she was told it would be almost $500.
She took a floor with bleach and a toothbrush. It was exhausting, nauseating and made the whole area stink of bleach for days. It worked, but it certainly wasn't a viable solution for larger rooms.
Because she had professional experience, she asked me if I knew what would help. We decided to take an afternoon and try some experiments. After some tests and mistakes, we came up with something that was pretty impressive.
Keep in mind that it's all about keeping cleaning tasks as green and non-toxic as possible. I worked for many years as a professional housekeeper and I know very well that most commercial cleaning products pose many health risks. Our technique was not completely green, because sometimes it takes a little muscle for hard work, but it was much less toxic than a room full of bleach and other chemicals, yuck!
As we did not want to submit to the potent vapors of the migraine-inducing lye, we decided to create our own recipe that was effective, smoke-free and as toxic as possible.
The following is the recipe for our combination and tips to make the work more fluid, highlighting the mistakes we made and what we should have done differently.
Fortunately, your floor and/or shower cleaning experience will be much more fluid and won't take six hours with two people like ours. The following shows how we clean the grout and returned it to look new. The ingredients are cheap, simple, mostly non-toxic and very effective.
Our effective grout cleaner, mostly natural
* Disclaimer *: Please note that you SHOULD always perform a spot test before testing any technique and that this method will lighten your grout, so it should only be used in white/light grey grouts in the first place. Do not try this in dark or colored grouts or it will alter the color!
In a bucket we combine a small box of baking soda, about 1 cup of Oxiclean, and enough peroxide and lemon juice (2 parts peroxide for a part of lemon juice) to make a thin paste. Stir well, mixing very well. Wear gloves to protect your hands, as this is very dry for the skin.
Use a grout cleaning brush (not a toothbrush that is not as effective) and apply the mixture to the grout only in a small section of 9 to 12 squares of tile, more or less. Scrub the mixture in the grout, being careful not to scrub all the tiles. It will not damage the chips if you have it there, but it is a great pain to scrub the tile.
Allow the mixture to rest for 15 to 20 minutes and then use a steam wand to clean. Keep your pasta fine, such as Elmer's aqueous glue consistency and do not apply too much for best results.
* Helpful Tip *
Go to the dollar store and invest in a garden platform. It is a square foam pad that you can throw on the floor/floor to kneel. It will save your knees while applying the pasta with your grout brush. You can also use a long-handled grout brush, but I think you get better control and more "muscle" behind applying it with a hand brush.
Cleaning and disposal
Try using a steam wand with a grout or jet attachment to propel the steam through the grout cleaner. The heat of the steam will re-moisten and dissolve The cleaner. Clean as much water as you can immediately. You will need to make a couple of passes with the steam in the areas near the walls to remove all the grout cleaner.
Regardless of the amount you clean, the mixture will LEAVE a calcareous residue behind the grout lines of the tiles when it dries completely. It took Me several tries with just a steam mop to accomplish this and it was a great pain.
Oxiclean and baking soda do wonders to clear and remove stains, unfortunately they do not like to rinse easily with water/steam alone. If you are doing this in a shower, you can simply use a sponge and rinse it off the walls with the showerhead. On the floors, however, it may be a little more complicated.
The best steam cleaner for grout
For this job I used my Oreck Steam-it Wand which I love. It runs around $140 a brand new retail. It has multiple accessories and can be used as a wand or mop that can clean in green any area of your home, from tiles to sealed hardwood floors, grout, glass and more. The filters are durable and the water tank will be cleaned for 35 minutes in a row. It is a valuable investment for its ease of use and ultimately will be amortized alone.
Oreck Steam-It Steam Mop, Steam100LRH Oreck Steam-It Steam Mop, Steam100LRH buy Now
Get rid of the waste-lessons learned!
What I finally finished doing was taking Windex, spraying the tiles with the dry residue, and then drying it with a lint-free cloth. The little ammonia in the window cleaner cut off the residue and removed it immediately. This only took once and the floors were beautifully dried and without residue. I wish we had done this long before the 4-story rinses we made with steam and a wet mop.
This is why I recommend making the floors a small area at a time and not a whole room at a time as we did. It took us hours to figure out how to get it all off the floor. Ultimately, the window cleaner and wiping it with a dry rag instantly eliminated all traces of the tile residue.
If you move across the floor, making small sections at a time, you can make the grout clean completely and not trace the dry residue around the rest of the floor you just mopped. Ahem. -I said "lessons learned" at the top of this section.
Made in small sections at a time, this is an incredibly easy, effective and economical way to clean your grout and save hundreds of dollars without many headaches. You'll be surprised how fast you can do this with steam. The cleaning solution does all the work for you, without the need for thorough washing.
You should use a steam wand to get the grout completely clean and restored as new (borrow one if you want, but I recommend investing in one as they are excellent cleaning tools for many purposes).
The next day, once the grout has dried completely, if the stains still look dark or residues of white powder remain, moisten only with peroxide and allow to settle for a few minutes. Review Grout with a magic eraser. This cleans any points you have lost with scrubbing and steaming.
Of all the areas of the floor we made, only a small spot in front of the fridge looked still dirty when it dried up completely. The next day we put the peroxide and used the Magic Eraser and it worked beautifully. The steam of the day before had almost done its job and had loosened the dirt, this high-traffic place just needed a little extra help.
Yes, our method is still a process, but it works very well.
I recommend applying a grout sealant after cleaning the grout to help seal dirt and lengthen the time between grout cleanings. Check the manufacturers ' website on your floor or consult someone at a home improvement store for sealing recommendations.
What do you think about Grout cleaning?
Have you ever cleaned the grout?
- Yes and it was horrible never try again
- Yes, it was horrible and I'll have to do it again anyway because it's too expensive to do it for me.
- No, no, but I'll definitely consider trying this technique
- No I didn't but I'll call a professional anyway because it seems too hard work
- Other-Share your thoughts in the comments below!