Wednesday, September 25, 2013

How to clean tile and grout if you want to try and do yourself.

First off you will need to know what kind of tile you have on your floor (do not guess this will be a big mistake and you could potentially ruin your nice tile floors) If you do not know ask the company that installed it or if you know the manufacture check with them. If you need help on tile contact us and we can help you out. Make sure you find out what you can use on your floor before applying any cleaners. This is a general explanation of how to clean tile and grout. Grout is very porous and will soak up anything that touches it. Sometimes grout soaks up stuff all the way to bottom and there is no way to get it out no matter what cleaner or process you use if this happens you must re-grout floor.

Alkaline cleaners will tear into dirt and grease or anything that it not a mineral. To remove any mineral deposits you must use a acid based cleaner. Alkaline cleaners will not get up minerals and acid cleaners will not get up grease or dirt. Alkaline or neutral cleaners will not hurt stone, ceramic, porcelain or marble floors. You can use alkaline cleaners on all tile floors, but to make sure 100% you must ask the manufacture of tile.

You will want to sweep entire floor make sure you have removed all dry soil. You will then want to find either a neutral or a alkaline tile cleaner, there are many out there on the market.  You must apply cleaner to tile and grout. You must let cleaner sit and dwell properly refer to instructions on bottle. Once the cleaner has had time to dwell you will need to scrub your tile with a tile brush. Then you will need to scrub your grout with a grout brush. There is 2 different kinds of brushes make sure you use the right one. Once you have cleaned the tile and grout with the alkaline cleaner you now need to rinse the floor to remove all of the alkaline cleaner. If you like the way floor looks you can leave it and your done.

If you would like to get your grout cleaner you can use a acid based cleaner and repeat all steps again. this is really a restoration step but will get grout as clean as possible once you have removed all dirt grease and minerals your grout is at clean as it will get. ( DO NOT USE ANY ACID BASED CLEANER ON A STONE FLOOR YOU WILL RUIN YOUR TILE. REMEMBER  ACID WILL EAT MINERALS AND STONE FLOORS COME FROM MINERALS SO DO NOT USE IT ) once you have finished cleaning and rinsing floor and there is no acid based cleaner on floor you must complete one last step.

When you clean with a acid based cleaner it puts your floor in a acid state you will need to bring your floor back to a natural state so how you will do this is to apply a alkaline cleaner to floor you will not need to scrub, only spray on floor once you have done this you can rinse floor and then you will be done.


If this sounds like a lot of work it is, to do the job correctly. To get the floor completely clean you must do all these steps. If you don't do all the steps and cut corners or costs, just know your floor isn't the cleanest it can be. If this is to much work for you to tackle call us we would gladly do this for you. We are professionals at cleaning tile and grout.   602-354-5223 www.azcarpetandtilecleaning.com

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

What to do if you have a flood in your home or business

Have ever woke up to a flood in your home or business ? Well here is a description of what to do. First you want to remove all standing water asap. Pick up a shop vac and suck up all standing water, if for some reason there is to much water to suck up with the equipment you have please call a professional company. go to www.azcarpetandtilecleaning.com if you need help. Do not hesitate because of cost because if you don't get it up right away you will cost yourself a lot more money in the end.

Once you have removed all standing water proceed to next step. Depending on what flooring you have you have, you will need to handle it in different ways. Lets start with carpet you will first need to pick carpet and get the wet pad out or dry depending on how wet it is. you will also need to check moisture in the walls touching carpet because water will travel up the wall possible up 4 ft so you will need a moisture reading to let you know if walls are moist. If walls have moisture then you must do 2 things both will work. You can remove the drywall, baseboard and replace or you can drill holes about 6 inches from each other at bottom of wall and put fans with adapters into holes to dry.

Water will continue to go from top to bottom so that is why you dry from bottom to top. Remember if you cant handle this procedure then call a professional. You must dry out anything that has water or moisture as fast as possible to prevent mold or fungus from growing which will create a bigger problem for you. Everything must be dry before putting back (carpet,pad and drywall ect).

 Lets talk tile you might get lucky in the fact there is concrete between you slab and the tile, however you might have to deal with a moisture problem if it gets to much water it can pop up tiles in which you will have to re install new ones. If the tile has not popped up then you should be fine just make sure you check that you have removed all water and put down fans to dry floor asap. You will also have to do a moisture reading on your walls because there is a chance your tile is installed right and the grout didn't let to much water soak in and all water went right to the edges of the room.

Now for all you wood owners you will have a problem if you have flood. Once water hits wood usually it will start to buckle or warp. If that happens you must install brand new pieces. It is very hard to keep a wood floor from getting damaged with water so do your best to get up all water asap and watch floor closely if there is no buckling or warping then you should be fine. The faster you get the water up and floor dry and anything else the water has touch you should be fine, if you take your time and go slow then you could have a mold or fungus problem so please make the right choice and act fast. Hope this helps you and remember if you ever need to replace any flooring please visit www.azcarpetandtileinstallation.com .