sealing Archives - North Buckinghamshire Tile Doctor

Deep Cleaning and Sealing Terracotta Tiles in a Brackley Kitchen

Photographs below of a Terracotta tiled kitchen floor installed in the kitchen of a residence in the market town of Brackley, Buckinghamshire. The tiles had gone dark with years of soil trapped into the pores of the Terracotta and the while the grout had become heavily stained.

Cleaning Terracotta Tiles

It had clearly been sometime since the floor had been deep cleaned and to get the dirt out of the tile I could see it was going to take quite a bit of work. I set about applying a strong dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean which is an industrial strength alkaline cleaning product that’s safe to use on tile and stone and mopped it onto the floor. The solution was left it to dwell on the floor for twenty minutes in order for it to soak into the tile and get to work on the dirt. It was then worked into the floor using a rotary machine fitted with a black scrubbing pad and stiff hand brushes were along the grout lines.

Terracotta tiles during cleaning in Brackley

The now dirty cleaning solution was extracted from the floor using a wet and dry vacuum and the floor was then rinsed with clean water to neutralise the tile and allow us to see the result. More work was required and the process was continually repeated until I was happy that any old sealer and all the dirt had been removed and then the floor was given a final rinse, wet vacuum and then left to dry overnight ready for sealing the next day.

Terracotta tiles after cleaning in Brackley

Sealing Terracotta Tiles

I returned the next day to seal the floor checking first that the tiles had dried out sufficiently for sealing. All was well so I started sealing the Terracotta tiles with seven coats of Tile Doctor Seal and Go which will protect the tiles from staining and also adds a nice subtle shine to the floor. Terracotta is a clay based product and so naturally quite porous.

Terracotta Tile Maintenance in a Brackley Kitchen

Deep Cleaning and Sealing Limestone Tiled floor in Bedford

Limestone Tile Cleaning and Polishing, Work History / Jack Day / deep cleaning, limestone cleaning, limestone restoration, limestone tiles, north buckinghamshire, sealing, tile cleaning, tile restoration, tiled floor

This was a Limestone tiled floor that had seen better days, unfortunately the customer had not been given the right advice and had been cleaning the floor with a popular supermarket floor cleaning product which being slightly acidic had over time stripped all of the sealer off the tile. With no sealer present dirt and grime had become ingrained into the pores of the tile making it impossible to clean.

Deep Cleaning Limestone Floor Tiles

To deep clean the floor I decided to use a medium dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean which was left to soak into the tile for around thirty minutes before working it in with a rotary machine fitted with a black scrubbing pad.

We let the solution dwell a bit longer whilst we setup the Rotavac machine which is a brilliant piece of kit that directs fresh warm water under pressure onto the tile whilst simultaneously removing the soiled solution with a secondary vacuum back to a storage unit on the van. The combination worked well and the floor was soon looking a lot cleaner, there were some areas that needed further attention including the grout which we hand scrubbed along the grout lines.

Once happy that the tile and grout was clean the floor was then left to dry.

Sealing Limestone Floor Tiles

Once the floor was dry it was sealed using two coats of Tile Doctor Colour Grow which is a colour enhancing sealer which provides maximum stain protection on natural stone floors whilst bringing out the deep colour in the stone. The last step was to buff the floor to a nice shine with a rotary machine fitted with a white buffing pad.

The final result was amazing and the customer was very happy also to make sure we didn’t get called back too soon I gave them advice on how to clean the floor in the future using Tile Doctor Neutral Clean which is a PH neutral cleaner that is safe to use on Tile, Grout and Stone.

Limestone Floor Deep Cleaned and Sealed in Bedford

Deep Cleaning and Sealing Limestone Tiled floor in Bedford Read More »