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Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Gross Grout Cleaning!

As most homes in the southwest...I have a lot of tile in my home. And, those of you with lots of children, like me, understand how hard it is to keep the grout clean. Well, on Pinterest, there were a lot of ideas on how to clean your grout...so I decided to try one. The one I tried was from Aprrils Opinion blog.

First I want to show you my floors...
I know! GROSS! I hate grout!

Between the fridge and island (where the kiddo's eat) is even worse!

So, as you can see, I was desperate!

Here is the formula that was recommended...(copied from Aprril's blog)

7 cups warm water
1/2 cup baking soda
1/3 cup ammonia
1/4 cup vinegar

Now this much liquid didn't even close to fit into my tiny little spray bottle and it probably won't fit in yours either, so here is the recipe halved and quartered.

Halved
3 1/2 cups water 1/4 cup baking soda
2 Tbsp + 2 tsp ammonia
2 Tbsp vinegar


Quartered
1 3/4 cup water
2 Tbsp baking soda
1 Tbsp + 1 tsp ammonia
1 Tbsp vinegar

I used the quartered version for the pics below. I also wrote the formula on a piece of paper and taped it to the bottle. Make sure never to mix bleach with ammonia, you will die or something...


Here is the method:

First mix the ingredients and give the bottle a good shake.
Spray the grout (I started with 2 tiles at a time) and let the spray sit and absorb a little into the grout. Be generous.
Grab a grout brush, scrub brush, or tile brush with a handle and scrub the grout vigorously where the spray has been sitting. Don't get it in your eyes, trust me.
Use a clean damp rag to wipe each line of grout right after you scrub it to pick up all that dirty liquid, might be handy to keep a bowl or bucket of warm water nearby because you'll want to continuously clean the rag.
Depending on the color of your tile, you may want to mop the whole thing when you're done because the baking soda may or may not leave some white residue. Personally, I mopped and towel dried the floor.

OK, so I did all that...here are some pictures of the outcome...

Already much better! It does leave a white film on everything the liquid touches!

Here is the grout after wiping it down.

And, after I went back and mopped everything down.

I have to say, I am pretty surprised! It does look great.

The bummer to this...the grout just gets dirty again. It's been two weeks since I tried this and it definitely is staining up again. But hey, for a couple weeks it looked great!

Thanks Aprril!

29 comments:

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    ReplyDelete
  2. Have you tried to seal the grout? Grout is porous, so sealing it may help keep your grout clean. I have tile in my bathrooms and deep clean then seal once a year. If I didn't clean them so darn much I probably could go longer between applications. And I do two applications - do the bead test (apply a bead of water to the grout with the dried sealant - if the water beads up you're good, if it doesn't do another application). Found your link on Sharon's blog! (whorlybird) xoxoxo cindy

    ReplyDelete
  3. Looking good! I think you did a great job in removing all the unpleasant grouts in your tiles. I just hope you were wearing safety masks and gloves while doing the cleaning. Ammonia is not very pleasant once it enters the body, and it might cause difficult breathing, coughing, and nose and eye irritation.

    Fredia Zupan

    ReplyDelete
  4. This blog has really helped me to take care of my tiles and grout. Moreover, it has given me another perspective to think about this issue and a wider perspective.
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  14. I really loved your article, and totally agree because even i faced the same consequences. I have faced some problems while cleaning grout. Actually, this low-quality grout hardens in chunks and wears off. And ultimately tiles loose ups and comes out. For deep root stain it is not possible and time consuming job, using scrubbing with vinegar and baking soda, need something powerful product. And, even using the vinegar, I found out that it is losing the natural shine of the stone tile. And I found a product Imperia deep clean, Sentura and Caponi which is an excellent, adheres and covers all the grout lines perfectly in a single coat as if it is a new grout. There's no going back now, these floor cleaners full fill all my needs for my home improvement.

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