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