The owners of this house in Adwick Le Street, which is North of Doncaster, were fed up with the appearance of the Grout in their Ceramic tiled kitchen floor. They had not been able to keep the grout clean and it was now patchy, discoloured, darker and consequently always looked dirty.
I visited the property, to survey the floor and could see the Ceramic tiles and where in good condition, but the grout lines were really letting the kitchen down. I discussed with my client the option of re-colouring the grout, which they agreed was sensible, anything to keep the impossible grout clean. The alternative of scraping out the grout and replacing would be a messy and time-consuming option which we both agreed was not the choice they wanted to go for. I gave them a price to complete the work which they were happy to go ahead with.
Recolouring Grout on a Ceramic Tiled Kitchen Floor
Before any grout colouring could be done the grout first needed to be prepared, this was done using Tile Doctors Grout Colourant Pre-Treater which is an acid-based cleaner specially made for the job. This product cleans and prepares the grout for the colourant to ensure a better contact with the colourant later. It’s very simple to apply and is simply sprayed onto the grout lines, left to dwell for five minutes and then scrubbed into the grout by hand. Once done the soiled pre-treater is rinsed off with water and removed with a wet vacuum.
Once the grout lines are dry, they are ready to be coloured, unfortunately this is a manual process which take a lot of attention to detail and can be quite tedious. The best way of doing it I have found is go get down on your hands and knees with a toothbrush and gently scrub the colourant into each grout line, any colourant that seeps over onto the tiles needs to be quicky wiped away before it dries. The one upside however is observing the highly satisfying transformation of the grout as the result is instant and you can see the improvement as you go along.
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There are ten grout colours of Tile Doctor Grout Colourant to choose from and in this case the owners had chosen Natural Grey. If you want to save a few points they also sell a Grout Colourant kit that contains both the colourant and the pre-treater. The grout colourant is epoxy based so it remains water and stain proof and will last for years.
I’m not sure the pictures I took do the transformation justice, but my client was over the moon with the difference it had made to the floor. The patchy grout was gone and then whole room seemed brighter.
For regular cleaning I recommended the use of Tile Doctor Neutral Tile Cleaner which will keep the floor looking good but is gentle enough to use every day and won’t compromise the colourant.
When cleaning tiles with a mop we recommend using two buckets, one containing a neutral pH cleaning fluid such as Tile Doctor Neutral Tile Cleaner or Stone Soap and the second where you rinse your mop afterwards, otherwise you will contaminate your cleaning fluid with dirt every time you rinse.