— Grout Cleaner Guide

Application of high pressure generated by a truck-mounted or portable can be gainful, provided you are aware of the kind of floor you are handling and know the correct way of cleaning it. Else, it might prove to be a costly venture. It’s difficult to believe that over the last fifteen years, the sales of hard stone products have gone up by 2,000 percent. Even if you are handling the business of carpet cleaning, it helps to know how to clean different surfaces at your client’s end.

You are likely to come across slate in commercial building entryways, though people do use it these days at homes too.

It is important to know how slate is formed if you like to undertake cleaning of this kind of stone. Slate is created in nature from clay-rich mud through tectonic stress and it is believed that the process of its formation started 570 million year ago.

It got shaped when sediments of organisms at the seabed resulted to mud deposits. The pressure and temperature of Earth’s crust squeezed the mud into layers of shale that ultimately pushed it upward.

Slate as a building material is used for construction of floors, walls, roofs, and also high quality pool tables. As floor care technicians you need to do things differently when cleaning slate?

Cleaning challenges: Slate presents us with three different challenges, making it a bit more difficult to handle than most other stones. First is its formation.

The thin layers of rocks that are stuck together may come off on facing very high pressure employed for cleaning.

When cleaning slate, bring the pressure down.

To compensate for the loss pressure, you have to slightly increase agitation, but keep it below 800 pounds per square inch (PSI).

Second, as it is absorbent by nature it tends to absorb staining material, thus developing stains.

Most cleaners experience that cleaning products containing oxygen when used to clean hard surfaces allow oxygen to get absorbed in the stone and cause safe “bleaching action” to remove the absorbed stains.

Finally, to avoid staining and the layers of slate from getting chipped off, manufacturers and installers generally apply a coating of wax on the slate to make it more durable.

Now, that presents another difficulty for cleaners.

At times the wax might have been removed from certain areas or it could get removed from high-pressure cleaning.

Tell your customer that this is not as much of a cleaning issue but, a restoration issue.

Use only appropriate stripper and wax especially made for using on natural stones.

And, remember to play it safe by testing it in a not so noticeable part of the slate.

Learning a bit more regarding the floor you plan to clean prepares you better for answering when questioned on procedures and products will deliver the best results on a particular floor.

It will do you good to read the natural stone care article on my website for understanding how to handle different types of natural stones.

For cleaning of grout and tiles, two types of machines are available and both of them are quite easy to use. You may opt to use a pressure washer or a steam cleaner.

The advantage of using a steam cleaner is that apart from cleaning the grout it also kills germs, bacteria and mites. But you need to make sure that you use a good steam cleaner that does the job right. The pressure rating of a good steam cleaner should be at least six bar. It should also deliver pressurized steam at 180 degrees, whereas the boiling point of water is hundred degrees Celsius.

Steam that has reached a temperature of 180 degrees Celsius is known as vaporized steam. Its moisture content is about four to five percent of the normal steam. The benefit of using such steam for grout cleaning is that there is no water mess to clean up after cleaning the grout. A steam cleaner is a very effective equipment for cleaning grout. You may opt to hire the services of professionals providing such service or you may rent a machine from a local rental shop if you like doing the job yourself. However, you should know that after the grout has been cleaned with a steam cleaner, it’s imperative to apply grout sealer to keep the grout clean & maintained for long.

The other option of a grout cleaning machine is a pressure washer. An important drawback of using a pressure washer as compared to a steam cleaner is that the former needs a lot more water; as a result the clean up after pressure cleaning takes a lot longer. Because of it you may not be able to use it all over the house. A pressure washer is ideal equipment for using outdoors, and in baths & showers. You may even consider using it for bathroom floors but with a lot of care. However, it is not the best option for cleaning tile flooring, like in your kitchen.

The helpful feature of using a pressure washer is that it works much faster than a steam cleaner for larger areas, and is convenient to use in vertical positions when cleaning walls of bath and shower. Nevertheless, you need to be careful not to operate it at very high pressure that could damage the grout.

As is the case of a steam cleaner, you may rent a pressure washer, or hire a professional for doing the grout cleaning for you. They are not expensive to rent and would usually be $40 – $50, you may even consider buying a new quality machine for $300.

Note: When you are on the look out for renting or buying a pressure washer, pressure in terms of PSI is not the lone factor that determines its speed. Consult a salesperson to make sure that you buy the right pressure washer for your kind of job.

Normal maintenance and regular grout cleaning is necessarily required to continue having clean grout for a long period of time. It helps reducing the avoidable expense required for replacement of ceramic tiles. However, use of extraordinarily strong grout cleaning agents can be harmful and could also damage the grout or lead to discoloring of colored grout. The stronger chemicals usually prove to be an unnecessary expense, as there are quite a few a home remedies for having a clean grout. These are convenient to procure and give satisfactory results.

Oxygen based bleaching agent works better than the chlorinated variety for the purpose of cleaning grout. It is safe to be using oxygen as it poses no health hazards. That makes it a better choice, especially if you have growing children at home.
Further, an oxygenated bleach solution is more effective while handling tougher stains. Its preparation is also very simple. Mix one cup of OxiClean or such like oxygenated bleach powder in two gallons of hot water. Though OxiClean is milder than chlorinated bleach, you would better test the prepared mixture on part of grout first if you are going to use it for colored grout.

Despite your having tried different grout cleaning chemicals, you may still have black stains on the grout. The culprit in most such cases is mildew that is a big problem in humid areas like tubs and showers. But you need not worry of that as there is a home remedy for that too, and rather inexpensive. That is alcohol. If ever, you spare a moment to read the label of contents of any bathroom cleaner, you will realize that alcohol is one of the ingredients. It will work out very economical for to buy a bottle of alcohol from your local pharmacy and transfer the contents to in a spray bottle and spray the area affected with mold and mildew. Apart from that, another helpful way of keeping the mildew at bay is to dry your shower and bathing area after each use followed by praying with alcohol. It also saves you time in the long run and helps keeping the grout clean.

Once you have completely scrubbed the grout clean, the final action of cleaning involves using a moist sponge or cloth to wipe out the excess of dirt and grime, and also wash out any residues of chemicals  that the cleaning agent often leave behind. It is good to be using running hot water for rinsing the cloth or sponge for the purpose, as it prevents you from contaminating the areas that are yet to be cleaned, and gives better results than using water from a bucket. Thorough mopping of the entire floor soon after grout cleaning not only ensures that all the area is clean, but also free from any left over chemical residue.

There is little doubt that the process of grout cleaning is very tedious and costs a lot of time and physical effort. The trick is to take short breaks while scrubbing grout clean. It helps to prevent have a stiff back or pain in the knees. It is not difficult to understand that the longer the break, the longer the time you’ll take to finish the job. Ideally the breaks of half a minute to one minute should be fine.

If you find cleaning too much of an effort to make, you have the choice of hiring the services of a professional grout cleaner and get the job done. The professional cleaners have better quality of chemicals and special equipment that enables them to do the job very fast. Moreover, the special purpose machines employed by the professionals have a strong suction power that eliminates more of harmful dirt and bacteria. Of course, the expense of getting the job done thru specialist is quite high, compared to doing it on your own, but considering the quality of work done resulting to much deeper and efficient cleaning that gives a  better appearance to grout on the whole, it makes sense to go for it. Like any other business, the business of grout cleaning too has varying costs and generally those charging higher than others use superior chemicals and have better cleaning tools enabling them to get rid of the toughest grout stains. Make sure to ask the contractor about guarantee period before hand and have a written copy of it with you.