TILE FLOORS AND COFFEE
As a flooring inspector, I do a lot of driving. When I need a pit stop I typically stop at a McDonalds, more than likely their restroom will be clean enough so I don’t gag. And while there I will take advantage of the “any size” $1.00 cup of coffee. Who can beat that? The place will be clean and the coffee will taste the same regardless of the time of day, city, or town I am in. Regarding how clean the floors are, if you have ever stopped to look, their tile floors almost always look clean unless some muddy boot construction worker just walked through. And the floors are not grease-slick slippery like I find in much nicer restaurants or other fast food chains.
So I am standing in line to get my coffee and I hear the familiar sound of water hitting the floor from a mop bucket. Now I suspect this because as I was walking up to the counter to order my coffee I had already seen yellow safety signs set up to caution me of the wet floor. Then I hear a swishing sound and my still-functioning memory bank pulls out “scrub-brush-in-water-on-a-floor” sound. I turn around to look and yep, there it is, the young man who is charged with cleaning the floor is really cleaning the floor. He not only applied copious amounts of hot, soapy water to sufficiently flood clean the floor, but nooooooo, he scrubbed it too! Ding! Ding! Ding! That is a winning system.
What a perfect combination to get the floor clean. Then after scrubbing, he mopped up the soiled water and moved to another location. Now I have no idea if and/or when he changed the water, all I can tell you, is that before he cleaned the floor in this manner, the floor was already clean. Meaning, he must change the water often enough that it’s not leaving too much dirt behind. From this inspector’s perspective, that is a perfect way to keep a floor AND the grout looking good.
I am certain you have been in restaurants or other places that have tile floors and you want to gag. TILE IS NOT HARD TO CLEAN. People make tile hard to clean because they don’t have a system. McDonalds has a system. Love‘em or hate‘em, who can argue, they have systems in place that are followed enough to keep their restrooms clean, their floors clean, and they can serve you a hot and relatively good cup of coffee…FOR A BUCK!!
Things to remember when cleaning tile: most tile is not a flat surface, it has a texture to it. But also note that some tile are as flat as a pancake, how hard is that to clean? It’s not. Whether the tile is installed in a home or in a business, cleaning the “tile” is not hard or the problem, getting the grout clean is. Remember this also: the grout joint is slightly lower than the face of the tile. When mopping a floor, the edge of the tile acts like a squeegee and some of the (dirty) mop water stays behind in the grout joint.
DO’S AND DON’TS
Do pre-inspect the floor you are about to clean. What is the tile specification? Is it porcelain, ceramic, travertine, slate, granite, marble? You need to know because the chemicals you use to clean it and the agitation process you use, can permanently damage some tile.
Do pre-inspect the floor to discover if any grout is cracked or missing? Are there any tiles that are loose? This is important because: #1 you don’t want to get blamed for causing the consumer’s preexisting conditions, and #2 you don’t want to apply copious amounts of cleaner to the floor which can seep under the floor through the cracked or missing grout and create puddles under the tile. The only place for that water to evaporate is the grout joints, which can cause efflorescence to occur.
Do pre-inspect and determine the type of grout used. Is the grout cement based, urethane, epoxy, etc.? Cement grouts will be the most difficult to clean because they are the most porous. Cleaning urethane and epoxy grouts are easy.
Do use a professionally formulated cleaner meant for the job. For restorative cleaning, I recommend that you use a highly alkaline, degreaser-type of cleaner to remove the oils and greases that are the most common on any tile floor. Alkaline cleaners will not harm tile or grout. Be careful though, some may be caustic and adversely affect surrounding surfaces. After the restorative cleaning, switch to a good neutral floor cleaner for routine cleaning.
Do use agitation, but the proper type so it’s not too aggressive and damage the tile. You need to be careful how aggressive you get with granite, slate, travertine, or marble. Using aggressive brushes could scratch the surface of those natural stone tiles.
Don’t use acid floor cleaners on natural materials such as marble, granite, travertine, or slate. You will permanently etch the surface and damage the stone. I did an inspection for a homeowner recently whose large format porcelain tile was cracking, because the underlayment was not installed properly. She told me the installer told her to use vinegar and water to clean her floor. This is terrible advice. Using vinegar and water to clean the porcelain is fine, continued use however, will do damage to the grout. Basically what she told me is that the installer has about the same amount of knowledge to clean a floor properly that he has to install a floor properly. (NONE!)
Bob Villa seems to be the new Heloise® offering advice to clean grout with vinegar. Bob is telling people: “To keep your grout clean and stain-free, it’s a good idea to spray it with vinegar and wipe it down once a week.” Sorry Bob, but your advice is actually going to make the cleaning of grout more difficult and your advice is dooming the grout for premature replacement.
THE SCIENCE OF CLEANING
Here is the science behind what happens when you use acids to clean things that are alkaline. Have you ever mixed baking soda and vinegar together? It really is a fun chemical reaction to observe. Baking soda is alkaline and vinegar is acid, when you mix the two together you get a foamy chemical reaction (effervescence) that subsides rather quickly. Grout is a combination of Portland cement, which is alkaline, plus sand and other additives. When you clean the alkaline grout on a regular basis with an acid you will make the grout weak and porous. Which means it will be even more susceptible to absorb your coffee or wine spills and dirt. The grout will become more difficult to clean and keep clean. There are fixes for porous grout, but they are expensive and not very easy. And simply sealing the grout will not fill the pores.
Truth be known, tile floors should not be cleaned on a routine basis with acids. Not sure where the thinking came from to clean tile floors with acid. I guess because someone somewhere used muriatic acid or some other really wicked acid to remove excess grout from the floor and noticed what a fantastic job it did cleaning the grout. The only reason the grout looks cleaner is because a layer of the grout was etched off taking the soil with it. Be careful, acids can etch stainless steel, glass and damage many other things. And for those of you cleaning carpet in a home, be careful where you set your bottle of coffee stain remover. The acid in them is strong enough to leave a perfect acid-etched circle from the bottom of your bottle on the marble floor or granite hearth you set your bottle on. The only reason I have ever used acids on tile was to remove the mineral buildup that occurs on the top of the grout from months and years of cleaning; minerals left behind from the water which evaporates after frequent cleaning (see above about the squeegee effect). Those minerals hold soil and odors, especially in restrooms. It is also THE product to remove efflorescence on grout.
BOTTOM LINE
Whether you have a hundred square feet of tile in your home or you have to take care of thousands of feet in a commercial property, develop a system for keeping it clean. Remember, cleaning tile is easy; keeping the grout clean is more difficult. Develop a system which includes: a schedule of how often it should be cleaned (daily, weekly), to keep it looking good, use a good neutral detergent, use proper agitation, and never use acid cleaners on natural stone.