grout colouring Archives - Northamptonshire Tile Doctor

Limestone Tiled Floor Before and After Renovation Wellingborough

Renovating Polished Limestone Floor with Stained Grout in Wellingborough

This Limestone tiled floor installed in a kitchen and family room at a property in Wellingborough is a great example of how this material can lose its appearance without a regular maintenance plan in place.

Limestone Tile and Stained Grout Before Cleaning Wellingborough

The customer called me as not only was she concerned that the floor had lost its lustre the grey grout had become very stained and almost black in heavy traffic areas, in fact my customer had originally asked about re-grouting but I was confident it could be cleaned.
I provided a quote which they were happy to accept.

Cleaning/Polishing Limestone Tiled Flooring

The area was a nice wide 6 metre by 5 metre space and except for a few items of furniture that would need moving around there were relatively few obstacles. I reasoned the most efficient way to restore the polished appearance of the Limestone would be to use a set of diamond encrusted Burnishing Pads. These are fitted to a rotary machine and applied to the stone in sequence from coarse to smooth. It’s an effective process that cuts back the layer of dirt on the floor and then we build back up the polish.

We started burnishing the Limestone with a coarse 400-grit pad fitted to a rotary machine and applied with a little water for lubrication. The coarse pad is very good at removing dirt and old sealers from stone and once completed the resultant surface water and loose dirt is removed using a wet vacuum.

At this point I turned my attention to the badly stained grout lines, and applied a strong solution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean which was scrubbed in along the grout lines using a stiff grout brush, this is necessary as the recessed nature of the grout makes it difficult for the rotary pads to reach it.

I then repeated the burnishing process with the medium 800-grit pad and fine 1500-grit pad, the 800-grit pad removes any small surface scratches and the 1500-grit further refines the look of the Limestone slowly restoring its polished appearance.

Renovating Stained Grout on a Limestone Tiled Floor

After the whole floor had been burnished in this way it was given a further rinse with water and the soil extracted as before. I then inspected the floor to see if more work would be needed.

I was not fully happy with how some of the grout lines had responded, some were still slightly stained, and some marks were visible in the high traffic areas. I had already discussed on my initial visit with the client that this might be the case and it was agreed between us that should this be the case I would apply a Tile Doctor Grout Colourant in Light Grey to recolour all the grout lines and achieve a uniform finish.

The stone and grout was still damp from cleaning and polishing, so I decided to leave the grout colouring until the following day.

Sealing a Limestone Tiled Kitchen Floor

On day two I started by grout recolouring all the grout lines, it’s a straight forward process but can be a little tedious where there is a lot of grout to cover. Once complete I allowed the grout colour to dry for a couple of hours before moving onto the next step.

The last pad to be applied in the stone burnishing process is the very fine 3000-grit polishing pad which is applied dry to the tiles using a small amount of water sprayed onto the floor and leaves the stone dry and with a polished silk finish.

The floor was then sealed using two coats of Tile Doctor Ultra Seal Sealant allowing the first coat to dry before applying the second. Ultra-Seal is an impregnating sealer that works by occupying the pores in the stone thereby preventing dirt from becoming ingrained there. It’s also a natural look sealer that doesn’t affect the appearance of the stone

Limestone Tile and Stained Grout After Renovation Wellingborough

My customer was very happy with the transformation of her floor and provided the feedback copies below. In-fact she was so impressed with the results that she also used our services to restore the grout and silicon in one of her bathrooms.

“Phil was on time & easy to deal with and did an amazing job on my kitchen and bathroom floors and the carpets & sofa. No fuss, just a great job. Liz O.”

Professional Restoration of a Limestone Tiled Kitchen Floor in Northamptonshire

Renovating Polished Limestone Floor with Stained Grout in Wellingborough Read More »

Fixing a DIY Grout Cleaning Disaster in Alderton

I was recently called down to Alderton, a small village in the southern part of Northamptonshire most famous for housing the remains of a Norman Castle, known as ‘The Mount’. Unfortunately, this job involved remedying a bit of DIY grout cleaning that had not gone as expected.

As the first photo shows, my client had attempted to use a well-known household cleaning product to remove stains from the grout of his bathroom tiled floor which had not been sealed. Grouts are porous and, as a result, they can easily absorb grease and dirt, so it is understandable that my client would have wanted to try and clean them.

Diy Grout Cleaning Disaster Before Alderton

However, it is because of the porous properties of grout that the cleaning product did not remove the stains and, unfortunately, the stains were permanent. What’s more, the cleaning product itself had inflicted acid etching to the parts of the tiles where my client had scrubbed the grout.

Attempting to clean the stained grout

So what could be done to remedy the situation? My first action was to clean the grout using professional methods and products in an attempt to reverse the damage.

I did this using Tile Doctor 6″ twister pads, along with a hand-held buffing machine. The cleaning product I chose to use was Tile Doctor Grout Clean Up, which is designed to penetrate beneath the surface of the grout to lift out stains, smears and grout haze.

Diy Grout Cleaning Disaster After Cleaning Alderton

The final photo above shows the results of my attempts to clean the grout. Due to the extent of the damage, even a powerful cleaner like Grout Clean Up could not completely eliminate the stains completely. This meant that the only option left was to recolour the grout lines.

Recolouring the grout lines

I recoloured the grout lines using a white Tile Doctor Grout Colourant. This product is a waterborne epoxy that not only recolours, but also seals the grout lines in order to protect against further stains in the future.

Diy Grout Cleaning Disaster After Colouring Alderton

I coloured all of the grout lines in the bathroom to ensure that everything matched, as well as to create an overall high-quality resilient finish. My client was very happy with results – she also remarked that she would not be letting her husband near the bathroom floor again.

grout colouring