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This customer had a terracotta tiled floor in the kitchen, utility room and toilet, which hadn’t been sealed for 8 years and told us that the floor needed full restoration. On full inspection we also found that there was grout loose and missing and it was also different colours.
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The tiles were also stained with olive oil from cooking spillages.
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We started by giving the floor a deep clean by using Tile Doctor Pro-clean and scrubbing with deck brushes to remove all soils and old residue sealers. We then thoroughly rinsed the floor using our truck mounted machine and spinner tool. We had a problem of removing the oil stains from the tile as terracotta is very porous and had absorbed the like a sponge.
So we then applied Tile Doctor Remove and Go to the stained areas then sprayed with a light spray of water to help keep it moist and stop it drying out, we left this solution on the tiles for 90 minutes. After the dwelling time we steamed the floor as we rinsed off the Remove and Go. The next step was to rinse the complete floor with our truck mount cleaning system and a tile cleaning spinner tool. This thoroughly rinses and thoroughly cleans the floor with very hot water and high pressure.
We had to then tackle the grout problem, so we removed all loose and old grout, where needed and re-grouted the floor. This was left to dry for 48 hours to completely dry.
Then we applied 8 coats of Tile Doctor Seal and Go, leaving it to dry for 40 minutes between each coat. We returned the following day and re-coloured the grout with Tile Doctor beige grout re-colourant. This was then left to dry and a further 3 coats of Seal and Go.
Once this had dried we buffed the floor to harden the sealer and polish it. We used a Tile Doctor white pad and rotary cleaning and polishing machine to bring out the shine on the floor as shown in the pictures below:
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The customer was on holiday when we carried out the work, we had been dealing with the manager of the property, who when the customer returned was made to phone me, so the customer could thank me personally.
The customer’s comments were:
“I can’t believe how nice our floor looks and never thought it could look so good! “
They spoke to the manager of their property and have asked him to arrange with me another appointment as they wanted me to clean their courtyard area as well as they were absolutely delighted with their terracotta floors.
Source: Cleaning Terracotta Floors