Grout Sealing Services and Grout Maintenance

Grout Cleaning and Tile Maintenance

Everybody loves tile, but live on tile and you’ll start to hate grout. Tile is a little more maintenance, due to grout joints. Grout joints tend to get dirty and fade out with age and use. After a period of time, with all the dirt and wear-and-tear, the grout will get discolored. The dirt will take the pigmentation out of the grout, for darker grouts; or it will go black, for lighter ones. And unfortunately, it’s pretty much a magnet for dirt. Grout is so hard to clean. There are things like vinegar and water, a light form of acid that will get the dirt up without damaging it all. You can also clean it with (sulfammic?) acid. If it’s really bad, there are grout cleaning services with special grout cleaning machines you can hire.

Grout Sealing

But what I recommend though, upon installation, is to seal the grout. You have two options, clear sealant, which would show the grout, or epoxy sealant that is the same color as the grout. This puts a layer of epoxy over your grout. This epoxy is stain resistant and will make your grout last a lot longer. That will definitely help with the maintenance side of it.

Grout sealing is something we can handle, at a reasonable cost. Keep in mind that it’s way more effective (and also more cost-effective) to do this upon installation. At installation time, it will add only approximately $1 (for larger tile, like 24×24)-$3 (for smaller tile, 12x12s) to the cost per square foot, because the grout is new. (The cost depends upon the tile size and therefore the amount of grout to be covered.) If you decide to seal it later, you will have to have the grout deep cleaned first, AND it still will never be as good, because some of the dirt won’t come out, and then the sealant (neither clear nor epoxy) will not be able to adhere as well.

The only drawback, besides the added cost, is that you have to wait 72 hours for the grout to be cured, to make sure all the moisture is out, and then return to apply the sealer on top of that. After the sealant, you can use it almost right away. Within the same day, you would be able to walk on that tile.

We definitely recommend it. It’s an extra expense, and most people don’t go with it. They are paying enough for the tile, so they chance it. But honestly, just for full disclosure, we won’t accept a job sealing grout on old tile. It’s just impossible to get it clean enough to deliver a quality job. It’s much better all around to seal the grout at the time of install. It will save you headaches for the life of your floors. So if it’s something you are considering, now is the time!