Are All Tile and Grout Floors the Same?

There are a wide variety of types of tile and grout floors. Most of them are serviced the same as ceramic tile and grout. There are a few that require special care. These are porous textured tile floors that will generally have a finish applied to them.

The most common are the satillo or Mexican tile, flagstone, quarry tile, and sometimes even porcelain tile. When a topical coating is applied to these floors it must be maintained on a regular basis. When the coating starts looking bad or breaking down you will need to strip the floor of the existing coating and then rebuild the floors finish. This is the most problematic processes we perform. Sometimes it strips easy and other times you have to try 4 different strippers to find one the works. This is an area the Floor Cleaning Experts excels in. Simply because I'm to stubborn to let a floor finish beat me.

After the tile and grout have been completely stripped of wax and sealer, it needs to be either re coated with an acrylic topical sealer or with a penetrating sealer. If there is difficulty removing ALL traces of old finish from the surface re coating the service is the best option. The old sealer will bond to the new sealer and fade from view. Usually, at the next stripping all the old sealer will come off bonded to the new sealer.

When choosing a topical coating you must first look at the floors environment. Is it indoors or out doors? Does it get direct sunlight or pooling water.

If the floor is indoors, a water based acrylic coating will be used. This is a much easier to work with product and gives great performance indoors but will not stand up outside.

Outside or in direct sunlight a water based acrylic will not hold up, A solvent based acrylic is much more durable and can withstand a lot of punishment. But this product is very hard to work with and requires the proper safety equipment and VERY thorough preparation. Your only going to get one chance to get it right and mistakes are hard to fix with these sealers.

If the floor stripped to a pristine state, a penetrating sealer can provide excellent protection and a significantly lower cost of ownership. If you use the right product the right way.

Saltillo or Mexican tile, quarry tile, flagstone, and porcelain tile and grout are porous. Some more so then others. The saltillo and Mexican tile are the most absorbent and require a lot of sealer to fill the tile. These product work from inside the tile to increase surface tension so that water can't penetrate and oils won't adhere.

Sealing is a fine line between not enough sealer to fill the tile and grout and too much so you have a sticky mess to clean up.

The Floor Cleaning Experts uses Drytreat Stainproof to seal grout, porous tile, Mexican tile, and porcelain tile. StainProof penetrates into the tile and permanently bonds to the molecular structure of the tile or grout. This permanently seals the tile and grout. The Floor Cleaning Experts is a Drytreat Authorized Applicator. This allows us to give our clients a 15 year warranty on their grout sealer.