kitchen cleaning

Milled Sandstone Finished

Milled Sandstone floor maintained in Warsash

This Milled Sandstone tiled floor was installed in the kitchen of a house in the village of Warsash on the south coast. The floor was looking washed out and lost most of its colour and the owner wanted it looking its best.

Milled Sandstone 26 Begin Warsash

Cleaning a Sandstone Tiled Floor

The first job was to remove the kick boards from around base of the kitchen units a followed by the application of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean diluted with 10 parts warm water. This was left to soak into the stone and then worked in using a black scrubbing pad. This action gave the floor a good clean and the now dirty cleaning solution was removed using a wet vacuum, the floor was rinsed down with water and the process repeated in the areas where further attention was required until we were happy the tiles were clean. The final cleaning action was to wash down the tiles with clean water a final time to remove any cleaning product and neutralise the floor before the next step of sealing. The wet vacuum was used again to remove as much water from the floor as possible and we then left for the evening so the floor could fully dry overnight.

Milled Sandstone 26 Cleaning

Sealing a Sandstone Tiled Floor

We came back the next day and tested the floor with a damp meter in a few different locations to make sure no dampness remained in the stone. The sandstone was dry so we proceeded to seal the floor with Tile Doctor Colour Grow which is an impregnating sealer that occupies the pores in the stone preventing dirt from becoming ingrained there, it also as its name suggests brings out the colour in the stone and it certainly worked well on this floor and brought out the brown colours of the Sandstone, two coats were sufficient.

Milled Sandstone 26 Finished
 

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Romsey Ceramic Tile and Grout Before and After Cleaning and Colouring

Kitchen Ceramic Tile and Grout Clean in Romsey

This was a straightforward request to deep clean the Ceramic Tile and Grout in the kitchen of a house in Romsey, Hampshire but as you will see from the photograph below the Grout was far too stained to be cleaned effectively. Kitchen grout gets a lot of abuse from spillages so this is not unusual and to prevent it the grout can be sealed or you can choose a dark grout colour.

Romsey Ceramic Tile and Grout Before Cleaning

Cleaning and Preparing the Tile and Grout

To get the tile and grout clean I applied a dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean and left it to soak in to the surface dirt for a while before scrubbing it with a rotary machine fitted with a black scrubbing pad and also a stiff hand brush along the grout lines. This was then washed down with warm water all of which was removed by a wet Vacuum. This cleaning process was repeated until the tiles were clean and the grout was a good as I could get it. Unfortunately the grout had stained quite badly and we were unable to get a good uniform appearance so after discussing this with the customer it was agreed that we would apply a white Grout Colourant.

Applying Grout Colourant

If it was a small area I could have considered using a Grout Pen however this required more than a touch up so this is where you need an epoxy grout colourant which forms a hard wearing epoxy barrier over the existing grout that looks natural and effectively protects the grout from further staining.

The grout needs to be clean and dry before you apply it so if you’re doing this from scratch make sure you clean the grout first with Pro-Clean or the Pre-Treater product that is available. The grout colourant is then easily applied using a toothbrush, it sounds easy but you have to be very methodical. The colourant dries in about an hour after which it’s worth double checking your work and then removing any excess by applying a little water and running over it with a white pad.

Romsey Ceramic Tile and Grout After Cleaning and Colouring
I think you will agree from the photographs the tiles look much cleaner and the floor transformed by the improvement in grout colour.

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Kitchen Tiled Worktop in Brighton Before and After Cleaning

Cleaning a Ceramic Tiled Kitchen Worktop in Brighton

Following a referral from customer which is always nice to have, we paid a visit to a house in Brighton where the owner was having difficulty keeping their ceramic tiled kitchen worktop clean. As you can see from the photograph below the glazed ceramic tiles were in reasonable condition, it was the grout that was the problem; this is not unusual as glazer ceramics are very hard wearing but the top layer of grout is in fact porous and will trap dirt and become discoloured if not sealed.

Kitchen Tiled Worktop in Brighton Before Cleaning

Grout Cleaning

There were two ways this job could have been tackled, the first being to remove the top layer or grout using the flat blade of a screwdriver and then re-grout. It was a reasonably large area of worktop so this would have taken some time. The second and simpler option is to use a heavy duty tile and grout cleaning product such as Tile Doctor Pro-Clean and that is exactly what we did, it also has the added advantage of cleaning the tiles at the same time.

The Pro-Clean was diluted with water and then left to dwell on the tile and grout for about ten minutes before being scrubbed in by hand with a stiff brush. For the wall tiles the solution was decanted to a spray bottle and sprayed onto the tiles, the combination with air makes it lighter and more able to stick to a vertical surface.

The tiles were then washed down with water and any stubborn areas re-treated with more Pro-Clean and elbow grease, it wasn’t long before the tile and grout was looking like new again.

Sealing Grout

Now glazed Ceramic tiles don’t need to be sealed as the glaze provides an effective barrier however as I mentioned before the top layer of grout is porous and will attract dirt over time and should be sealed, especially considering kitchen worktops are used to prepare food. Tile Doctor have a range of sealing products any of which will seal grout however in this case I used Wall Tile and Grout Sealer which comes in a spray bottle.

Kitchen Tiled Worktop in Brighton After Cleaning

Cleaning Ceramic Worktop Tile and Grout on the South Coast

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Travertine Tiled Floor Finished

Cleaning & Sealing Travertine Floor Tiles in Portsmouth

This beautiful Travertine Tiled floor was installed in a Kitchen in Portsmouth; it was in need of a little TLC so the house owner called in Tile Doctor to give it a make over.

Travertine Tiled Floor Portsmouth Before

Cleaning Travertine Kitchen Tiles

Before starting the cleaning we applied clear silicone in order to protect the Kitchen units, otherwise water can soak into the plinths and kicker boards, and this was left to cure while we worked on other parts of the kitchen. There was a paint splatter on one area which we managed to remove using Tile Doctor Remove and Go which was left to dwell for an hour before being agitated with a scrubbing brush, the dirty solution was removed using a wet vacuum and we moved onto burnishing the whole tiled floor.

Travertine Tiled Floor During Cleaning
We stated the burnishing process with a red fitted to a rotary machine with a little water. The burnishing pads are encrusted with diamonds and are very good at removing dirt and sealers from hard stone including Travertine and Marble; the surface water and loose dirt was removed used a wet Vacuum. There are four coloured pads in the burnishing system and they are applied to the stone floor in sequence Red, White, Yellow and finally Green which provides the final polish leaving a high shine finish.

Sealing Travertine Tiled Floor

We left the floor to dry overnight and came back the next day to seal the floor. The floor must be dry before sealing so we test first using a damp meter in several locations to be sure. Once we were happy the floor was dry we proceeded to seal the Travertine tiles using two coats of Tile Doctor Colour Grow which really enhances the colours in natural stone as well providing excellent stain protection. The tile must be dry before applying the second coat so we use an industrial air mover to speed up the drying process.

Travertine Tiled Floor Finished
 

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