Cleaning Grout in a Ceramic Tiled Shower Cubicle
To clean grout we normally recommend a good scrub with Tile Doctor Pro-Clean which is an strong alkaline product, in some cases however the staining cannot be removed completely and the only thing your can do with the exception of re-grouting is to re-colour the grout with a Grout Colourant which are available in ten popular colours.
In the case of this bathroom at a house in Paisley near Glasgow both the floor of the bathroom and the shower wall tiles were in need of a refresh and after a review of possible solutions is was agreed the easiest thing to do would be to re-colour the floor grout with a Light Grey colourant and the wall tiles with a White colourant.
Cleaning and Colouring Grout
The first step before grout colouring is to give the grout a good scrub with Tile Doctor Pro-Clean to get it as clean as possible before applying the colourant. The grout was then rinsed and then dried ready for the colourant to be applied. You may be surprised to hear but we often find the biggest cause of staining to grout are the dyes contained in soaps and shampoos.
Once the grout is ready it’s a straightforward process of applying the colourant evenly along with thin coats along the grout line working the brush backwards and forwards whilst minimising the amount that gets on the tile. We were not changing the colour of the grout substantially so one coat of colourant was sufficient for both sets of tile.
With two colours being applied we were careful to ensure different brushes were used for each job to avoid any contamination and once the job was complete a damp pad was used to remove excess product from the tile surface.
As you can see from the photographs the difference was immediate, the other advantage of the colourant is it forms a barrier over the grout protecting it from staining and making it easier to clean going forward.