More often than not, the grout that a Katy homeowner swears is "stained" is just dirty. It started out a light sand or gray color when the builder laid it, and a few years of mopping filled the pores with soil and old cleaner. Get that out and the original color comes back.
Most two-story houses here have tile across the whole downstairs: entry, kitchen, breakfast area, family room, often the hallway to the garage. That's a lot of grout line, and it takes every bit of traffic coming in off the driveway and the back patio. Black gumbo mud tracked in after a summer storm doesn't help.
Why mopping makes it worse
A mop pushes dirty water across the tile, and the grout soaks it up. Grout is porous, sitting a little below the tile surface, and every mopping leaves behind a thin layer of whatever was in the bucket. Add a cleaner that leaves residue and you've got a sticky film that holds the next layer of dirt even better. After a few years the grout lines are darker than the tile by several shades, and no amount of mopping changes that.
Scrubbing by hand with a toothbrush works, slowly, on a small bathroom. Nobody is doing that across 1,500 square feet of porcelain.
The buffer, step by step
Our method is a machine buffer. It's a floor machine fitted with a scrubbing pad, and it works across the tile and down into the grout lines with steady pressure and speed that a hand brush can't match. Here's the order:
- A walkthrough first, to check the tile type, the grout condition, and any spots you want extra attention on. You get the price here.
- Vacuuming and sweeping to pick up loose grit, so it doesn't scratch the tile once the machine starts moving.
- A biodegradable, non-toxic cleaning solution spread across the floor to break down grease, soap scum, and old cleaner residue.
- Detail brushing along the baseboards and into the corners the buffer can't reach.
- The buffer pass, which scrubs the solution through the grout lines and lifts the buildup out of them.
- A rinse and pickup of the dirty solution, so nothing gets left behind in the pores.
The floor is walkable within the hour after we finish. The job itself takes a few hours for most downstairs areas, depending on square footage.
We clean ceramic and porcelain most of the time. Natural stone such as slate, travertine, and marble can be cleaned too, but it gets looked at carefully first, because some stone is sensitive to the products that are fine on porcelain.
Rooms we clean
Kitchens and the big open family rooms are the bulk of our tile work. We also do bathroom floors, tub surrounds and shower walls, entryways, mudrooms, laundry rooms, and tiled garage floors. Small businesses around Katy call us for break rooms, lobbies, and retail floors too.
Bathrooms get a little more attention than the rest of the house. Soap scum and body oil build up on shower walls and along the bottom row of tile, and the grout in a shower stays damp more than any grout in the house. Our solution breaks down that film without bleach fumes filling the room. Kitchen floors near the stove pick up a fine layer of grease that turns sticky and holds dirt, and that comes up in the same pass.
Large-format porcelain with thin grout lines, which is what a lot of newer Katy builds have, is the easy case. Textured tile and wide, sanded grout take longer, because dirt settles into every low spot, and the buffer needs more passes to work it out. Garage floors with tile are the hardest of all, with tire marks and oil to deal with, so we treat those as their own job.
When grout is past cleaning
Most grout cleans up. Some doesn't. If grout has been bleached repeatedly or soaked with a dark spill like red wine or rust, the color can be changed all the way through, and cleaning will lighten it without bringing it back to new. Grout that's cracked or crumbling needs a regrout, which is a tile setter's job. Your technician will point out anything like that before the machine comes out.
Making the result last between visits
Our firm opinion, after a lot of Katy kitchen floors: stop using bleach and steam mops on tile. Bleach weakens grout over time, and steam pushes hot water and whatever it loosens straight down into the joints. A microfiber mop with a pH-neutral cleaner, used lightly, does far better.
Wipe up spills early, especially grease near the stove and drinks near the fridge. Put a mat at each exterior door. And plan on a professional cleaning every 12 to 18 months for most homes, more often for big families or a house with dogs going in and out all day.
There's more on tile care and the buffer method at this tile and grout cleaning resource, a site dedicated to tile work.
Price and booking
Tile and grout cleaning is $45 off on the coupons page. With tile down and carpet up in so many houses here, pairing it with an upstairs carpet cleaning means one trip and one round of moving the kitchen chairs. Same-day openings come up fairly often, and somebody answers the phone around the clock.
Our tile work covers Katy, Fulshear, Brookshire, and Sealy. The number is 281-789-8998, or you can reserve a slot online. If the grout doesn't come up the way your technician said it would, the 100% satisfaction guarantee covers it.