If You Live in Phoenix, AZ You May Find That Keeping Your Tile Clean Is a Challenge
Tile and grout are made from a variety of different materials, these materials are often very porous. This means that your floor may be absorbing every ounce of grease and grime along with the germs that come with it. Some man-made tile materials such as porcelain or ceramic could also be partially porous depending on its texture, but usually not. Regardless, dirt may find its way into your home and settle on the surface of your tile despite its non-porous properties. States like Arizona make all types of flooring very difficult to clean, and keep clean over time.
What Makes Keeping Your Tile Clean in Arizona More Difficult Than Other Areas?
By nature Arizona is very dusty and dirt is more prevalent than other areas around the world. If you live in a large city like Phoenix, it may even add to the issue by allowing oils to mix with fine dust particles and heavy dirt from outside. This is a result of a higher than usual population and ends up causing a mixture of grease and grime that can turn a beautiful tile completely black within less than one year, yikes.
How We Resolve Dark, Stained, and Dirty Tile
If you’ve tried tile cleaning in your home by yourself, you’ll totally understand what we’re describing in this article. Stubborn residues are almost impossible to remove when they contain oils from the city streets and grocery stores nearby. Mopping is almost never a means of recovery from instances like this, so our process is quite a bit different.
Our tile cleaning service varies slightly depending on a few different factors such as tile material and whether or not it needs a full restoration or just a maintenance cleaning. We’re able to determine this by performing a small test area and finding out if the grout and/or tile has been sealed in the past. If cleanliness is easily obtained then we usually recommend a basic level maintenance cleaning. Our maintenance tile cleaning service includes pretreating alkaline 5:1, pressure washing, extraction, evap, and sealing (optional). However, if our customer is not only concerned with sanitization but is also looking for more aesthetic appeal, then we recommend a more in depth service.
Our restorative level cleaning process includes pretreating either alkaline or acid (whichever is most effective), pressure washing, extraction, evap, and color sealing the grouted areas. This results in more aesthetic appeal and almost always makes both natural stones and man made tile look new once again.
Preserving Your Tile and Grout Once It’s Cleaned
No matter what condition your tile is in, we always recommend doing your best to preserve it, especially if you’ve gone through the effort of cleaning or have paid for a professional cleaning. You can do this by installing a clear solvent sealer, natural look solvent sealer, acrylic color sealer, and/or enhancing sealer.
Misconceptions Regarding Sealer and Other Preservative Compounds
There are many different types of sealers, they’re usually made with the intention of sealing a specific type of tile and/or grout. For example, a natural stone such as travertine should be sealed with a natural look solvent impregnating sealer or an enhancing solvent. *Enhancer will darken your tile, use with caution. This is of course one of many examples and you should always ask a professional what sealer is best fit for your specific needs, or you can read more about how color sealing works.
The most common misconception is that sealer will prevent your tile from becoming dirty. While it’s very far from the truth, this is still something many service companies claim to this day. The fact is everything gets dirty over an extended period of time, the only difference is that sealer will make tile and grout easier to clean in the future and will prevent grease and grime from settling into its pores. This is true for both grouted areas and porous natural stones like travertine, marble, flagstone, and slate.
Sealers are usually made with hydrophobic compounds that act very similarly to Rain-X on the windshield of your car. An example would be if you dropped a glass of wine on your travertine or marble floor, and rather than the wine staining your tile it would bead/roll until you were able to wipe it away from the surfaces.
How Often Should You Maintain Your Tile Floor?
Maintenance cycle is determined by a few different factors, such as what material your tile is made from and what sealer was used to preserve it. And maintaining a tile floor where its grout has been color sealed looks a little different than your everyday cleaning. This is because acrylic colorants may respond negatively to certain chemicals and use of high pressure.
Ultimately you can determine what your maintenance cleaning schedule should look like based on manufacturer specifications of the sealer that is used to seal your floor. If two separate sealers are used (one for the grout and one for the tile surfaces) then you should base your maintenance schedule on the sealer that lasts the least amount of time. This method will prevent one or the other from diminishing faster than its counterpart.
A great rule of thumb is to clean and seal no less than once every two years and no more than once every six months. If your grout is color sealed, do not exceed 500 PSI if you’re using a steam cleaning unit or pressure washer. If you hire a professional service provider to conduct the services for you, then we recommend disclosing the grout colorant right away and asking for a warranty as well.
Seeking Professional Help
Our goal is to always educate our readers as much as possible, and we do encourage DIY projects for people that would rather save the money. But the fact is, there is a steep learning curve involved with understanding the chemistry behind releasing grease/grime from different tile materials, additionally the proper equipment can be very hard to obtain. Depending on the area that you reside, you may be able to lease equipment but consumer available equipment may not get you the result that you’ve hoped for. So we always recommend seeking professional help regardless of whether or not you intend to hire a pro. This is because the wrong chemical could completely ruin your floor depending on its material, and we hope to prevent as much of that as possible. Feel free to contact us on Google if you have any questions regarding your project, or if you would like to receive a free no obligation estimate for your next tile and grout cleaning project.
