A Complete Guide to Restoring and Protecting Tile & Grout

Cleaning, repairing, maintaining, and restoring tile and grout is a very detailed process that requires a thorough procedure and exquisitely designed products. While some of you do the tile cleaning right, you often tend to make mistakes in restoring the grout. On the other hand, some of you do clean the tile and grout properly but forget to take steps to prevent further staining. To help you restore and protect your tile and grout in the right way, here we have shared the complete guide to restoring tile and grout. This is a detailed step-by-step process  for tile and grout maintenance, following which you will never face issues with your surfaces.

First, Understand the Basic Issues with Tile and Grout:

• Grout often gets cracked and goes missing in some places due to heavy impact, extreme weather conditions and rough use. The missing gaps get water stagnant in their crevices, again leading to mold breeding.
• Sometimes, tile gets cracked or chipped and water stagnates in the holes. This again is excellent for mold formation.
• Those who get hard water, might face the issue of hard water stains on their surfaces.

To clean and restore tile grout, you need to follow a basic cleaning and maintaining procedure step by step. This procedure can be divided into cleaning, repairing, sealing, and maintaining.

Step – 1: Cleaning Tile and Grout:

Cleaning is the first step in restoring tile and grout. Kitchen countertops are prone to oil spills and acidic spills leading to staining and etching on the surface. This eventually makes the surface look dull and lack lustre. Shower tile and grout also faces constant water splashes and soap scum accumulation. Those who get hard water in their taps, face hard water staining issues on their natural stone tile. To deep clean tile and grout in shower and other surfaces, one needs a deep-penetrating cleaner which eliminates these stains and mold at the root level, thereby sanitizing the surface thoroughly. Such a deep-soaking cleaner cleans the tile and grout at the same time.

Here is How to Clean Tile and Grout:

• First Spray tile grout cleaner on the surface and wait for some time.
• Using a grout brush, scrub the surface.
• Retract and spray again.
• Retract and wash away the remnants to reveal a sparkling surface below.

Step – 2: Repairing Tile and Grout:

Grout:

While restoring cracks and chips, you need to first check the cracks and missing spaces in the grout. Restoration is incomplete without repairing the missing or cracked grout. A good quality epoxy resin adhesive is used to repair cracks in grout. As this adhesive is non-porous, there is no problem of molding or staining.

Here is How to Repair Cracked Grout:

To repair grout, you can use a  powerful epoxy grout filler which fills in the voids. These can be color shaded to match with the tile color.

Tile:

For repairing cracks in tile, use surface and delivers a natural look with its sleek appearance. New age epoxy resins can be pigmented in several options in order to match the color of the tile.

Here is How you can Repair Cracked Tile:

• For cracked tile repair, experts use these fillers to perform a seamless repair job.
• An epoxy resin adhesive never pops off from the surface and delivers a natural look with its sleek appearance.
• You need to put the fillers in the cracks and seal them completely.
• The excess buildup can be cleaned with an alcohol based cleaner.

Step – 3: Sealing Grout and Tile:

Grout:

Just cleaning the surface cannot assure that mold and mildew will not breed again. You need to seal the grout to ensure complete cleanliness. Grout also tends to crack and miss at some joints. Most people resort to re-grouting for repairing missing or cracked grout. Grout sealing is best done by an epoxy/resin, which makes a waterproofed surface to prevent the grout from staining. You also get color grout sealants which can be matched to the tile color.

Here is How to Seal Grout:

• You can seal the grout using a grout colorant and sealer, which forms a protective layer on the surface, preventing further moisture absorption and staining.
• These sealers are available in several shades and thus can be matched to the surface.

Tile:

After sealing grout, you need to focus on sealing tile in shower and sealing stone countertops and flooring.  After the surface has been cleaned and prepped with a good quality cleaner and cracked tile and grout repairs have been done, you should seal the entire surface with a solvent based topical sealer, which coats the entire tile and forms a protective barrier, thereby preventing further molding and staining. Sealing can also render a slight sheen on the surface.

Here is How to Seal Natural Stone Tile:

• Just apply the sealant on the stone tile and wait for it to dry completely.

Step – 4: Polishing Natural Stone:

After sealing, the last process is natural stone polishing. Once the sealant has shut the pores of the stone, you should polish the stone using a clear resin sealer to get that mirror like finish. This procedure locks in the brilliance and sheen of the stone forever and you will never have to bother about dulling or losing sheen from your marble stone again.

Here is How to Polish Natural Stone:

• After the natural stone sealant has dried, polishing the surface with high-quality sealants delivers a mirror like finesse thereby removing all the dullness and scratches from the surface.

Bonus Pro Tip: Maintaining Tile and Grout:

Natural stone care and maintenance is crucial once the surface has been restored. You need to use natural stone approved maintenance cleaners weekly once to remove the superficial dust, dirt and stains accumulating on the surface. Tile and grout care should be done with alkaline cleaners which remove the stains and reveal a sparkling surface below, without causing any harm.

Here is How to Maintain Countertops and Floor Tile and Grout:

Use a cleaner for maintaining floor tile and grout  and countertops, which acts as a fresh cleaner and eliminates the superficial dirt and stains accumulated on the surface. This one can be used for weekly maintenance.

Here is How to Maintain Shower Tile:

A shower approved cleaner for maintaining shower tile can be used on a weekly basis to make your maintenance jobs easier. These products are designed in such a way that they can withstand the moisture conditions prevalent in the shower.

Following a detailed technique for restoring floor tile and grout will give you everlasting results and your surfaces will sparkle with health and lustre for long. So do not ignore the hidden mold and dirty stains on your surfaces. Get rid of them immediately and reside in a ‘healthy’ place to ensure better health and better aesthetics.