Restoring the Appearance of Grout

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This particular Slate tiled floor was installed in the kitchen of a house in Huston, that’s Houston near Glasgow not the city in Texas. This is another example of a natural stone floor was overdue a deep clean and re-seal, any remaining sealer on the slate has worn off and the tiles have become dull and stained.

Cleaning Slate Floor Tile and Grout

First we stripped any remaining sealer from the slate tiles by applying a strong solution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean which was left to soak in before being worked into the stone using a black pad on a rotary bonnet machine; the resultant soiled cleaning solution was then extracted using a wet vacuum. This process was repeated three times to make sure all the sealer and dirt was completely removed and extracted.

After this we focused on cleaning the grout using more Pro-Clean this time worked in using a stiff grout brush by hand. Once done the floor was given a thorough rinse using clean water again using the wet vacuum to remove the water and get the floor as dry as possible.

Changing the Colour of Grout

We then left for the evening to allow the floor to dry off overnight and returned the second day and coloured the grout to dark grey using a grout colouring kit to achieve an even grout appearance. This is rather painstaking work but the effect is well worth the effort, then once that had dried we gave the floor a quick clean using Tile Doctor Neutral Cleaner.

Sealing Slate Floor Tiles

After allowing to dry overnight again, we came back the third day to seal the slate tiles for which we used six coats of Tile Doctor Seal and Go which is a water based sealer (no smell) which added a nice sheen to the tile and gave the desired finish.