More Ceramic Tile questions

[ntburns22]

We bought a house that has a lot of ceramic tile. The tiles and grout are filthy. I have tried every product available to get them clean and nothing seems to work. Has anyone used Stanley Steamer or another company to clean the tiles? I am at a loss and I hate the fact that parts of the floor always look dirty.

 

[Mermaid02]

My dh says to remove the grout and start over. Sounds like a lot of work though!

 

[ntburns22]

I wouldn't even no where to start or how to go about doing it. I really think they didn't take care of this house at all.

 

[denisem]

I once used grout cleaner from Home Depot (can't remember the name, sorry). It worked well but involved a lot of kneeling, scrubbing & rinsing.

A friend used the Grout Sealant from QVC and was happy with it. Looks pretty cool - it covers AND seals against future stains.

 

[barkley]

i used serv pro. they charged me by the square foot-i have a HUGE tile kitchen and entry way and i spent less than 500.00. they came in with two employees who got down on their hands and knees with scrub brushes and some type of industreal product (they worked on their hands and knees for 6 hours).

the tile looked as good as the day it was put in (and is the same a year later due to effort on my part to wipe up spills and such).

if you count (roughly) the tiles (if they are one square foot) in the room and multiply by their cost (i think it was $1.50 per square foot) you can get a rough idea of the cost.

but watch out-there are some companies out there that claim to be cleaners of tile-in reality they come in and tell you your tile is too costly or too far gone to clean then they try to sell you on regrouting which in actuality is their main line of buisness.

 

[ibidforit]

We had our grout cleaned professionally a few years ago. It was a company very similar to Stanley Steemer that also cleans carpets. They used a machine that steam cleaned the tile floors. They charged by the square foot. The grout was originally a very pale pink color that looked dark gray before cleaning. After steam cleaning it was back to its original color. After the grout was dry, we it had it sealed. I was very happy with the results!

 

[GoldenGate]

Have you tried Finazzle? I used the kitchen formula in the kitchen and it really whitened the grout which had not been really cleaned for a long time.

http://www.finazzle.com/prod_bg.html