A Guide To Cleaning Tiles

The usual cleaning methods only allow small surfaces to be cleaned at one time. They also leave a floor slippery when it's wet, and leave markings after it dries. A few tips on tile cleaning and care can make it easier to keep your floor clean.

Everyday Cleaning Tips

The burden of cleaning your floor every day can actually turn into something fun. But you shouldn't do it by yourself. The more people you gather around you, the merrier it gets. This activity is especially fun for small children, and will leave you with sparkling tiles.

The first thing you have to do is take some old beach towels - very large ones are the most efficient, but they shouldn't be too large for kids to handle. You also need warm water and very little, if any, pH balanced cleaner (one drop for a whole gallon of water).

Then you have to wet and ring out the towels. This is the hardest part of the job, but it can also be fun. Get two kids in a bathtub and have each of them take one end of the towel. Then tell one to start twisting the towel one way and the other the opposite way.

Spread the wet towels over the tiles, then have one kid stand on each towel with their feet about one foot apart. Tell them to shuffle their feet and move the towels with them. You can even make races on who covers the largest tile surface the fastest. This will be fun for your kids and their body weight along with the feet shuffling will make your floor shiny.

After you've cleaned the whole floor surface, repeat the process with dry towels to get the floor dried. There will be no slips or marks and the tiles will be dry and sparkling in no time - and you've also invented a fun game for your kids.

Heavy-duty Cleaning

For heavy-duty tile cleaning, you should use pH balanced cleaners, such as scouring cleaners or poultices. If your floor is really dirty, you can use more aggressive cleaners, such as high alkaline deep-cleaning types. For better results, leave the cleaner over the tile for a longer period of time.

If the dirt still hasn't come off, you can try using some acid solutions for resistant stains. Sulfamic and phosphoric acids are the best. Follow the instructions carefully. After a deep cleaning process, you should reseal the affected grout surfaces.

For large tile surfaces you can use commercial cleaning machines. Regardless of the cleaning process, you should rinse the tiles thoroughly to clean off any remaining detergent and then dry and polish.

Grout Haze

Grout haze is a grout residue on the tile surface. Sometimes you can clean it with just a scouring pad and some water. If this doesn't work, you can try a special scouring cleaner and a pad. For more stubborn stains use a grout haze remover from a cleaning product manufacturer. If this doesn't work either, the ultimate solution is an acid cleaner.

To keep your tiles clean and shiny, there are also some other things you could do apart from thorough cleaning. Keeping a rug or a mat at the door entrance will save you a lot of effort. You should also remember not to walk in stiletto heels on a tiled floor to prevent scratches. This, together with cleaning the tiles on a regular basis, will help you have the sparkling floor you want and in the same time postpone heavy-duty cleaning jobs for as long as possible.