How to clean ceramic tile floors and grout

Knowing how to properly clean your ceramic tile floors is essential to keeping your ceramic tile floors looking beautiful and stain free. The proper cleaning products and cleaning techniques can ensure that your ceramic tile floors will retain their new looking appearance for many years to come.

It is important to only use professional tile and grout cleaning products when you clean your ceramic tile floors.

Do not use any type of cooking or household products for cleaning ceramic tile floors.

The following are some of the products that should NOT be used to clean ceramic tile floors:

• Vinegar. Vinegar is an acidic product that was never meant to be used to clean ceramic tile and grout. Prolonged use of vinegar will eat away at the grout and cause the grout to break down. Additionally vinegar is difficult to totally rinse away after using it to clean ceramic tile floors. A vinegar residue will start to accumulate inside of the grout that is extremely difficult to remove.
• Bleach. Bleach is another acidic product that should not be used to clean ceramic tile floors. Bleach will break down the grout just like the vinegar and also cause the colored cements in the grout to wear away. Bleach will literally bleach away the color in the grout. Eventually the grout will start to loose its deep rich colors and also cause your grout to look splotchy.
• Normal household cleaners. Normal household cleaners are not recommended for cleaning your ceramic tile floors. These types of cleaners come in all different mixtures and pH levels and it is difficult to know how to use them properly to clean ceramic tile floors. Many household cleaners are difficult to rinse away out of the grout and many household cleaners are acidic in nature and can damage your ceramic tile floor grout.
• Dishwashing detergents. Dishwashing detergents are extremely viscous cleaners and they are extremely difficult to totally rinse away. There is a lot of bad information telling people how to clean ceramic tile floors with dishwashing detergent. Dishwashing detergents will accumulate on the ceramic tiles and in the grout and they will start attracting dirt and grime. Eventually the dishwashing detergents and the dirt and grime will form an extremely difficult to remove residue on you ceramic tile floors and inside of the grout.

Well the answer to this question is simple.

Cleaning products designed for cleaning ceramic tile floors and grout!

Choosing the proper ceramic tile and grout cleaning product is half the battle in knowing how to clean ceramic tile floors.

Ceramic tile floor cleaning products come in three basic types.

• PH neutral tile cleaners

• Alkaline tile and grout cleaners

• Acidic tile and grout cleaners.

Professional alkaline tile and grout cleaning products are excellent for removing the grease, dirt, grime and food products that are the most common substances causing your tile and grout to be dirty. These substances are acidic in nature and hence are cleaned up by reacting with alkaline type cleaning products.

Acidic tile and grout cleaning products are excellent for removing stubborn stains in ceramic tile floors and especially the grout.  Typically the grout is more difficult to clean then the actual tiles themselves.  The acidic cleaning product will remove many of the stubborn stains that the alkaline tile cleaning product could not.

Ph neutral cleaning products are excellent to clean your ceramic tile floors on a daily basis. These products are not aggressive cleaners so they will not remove the stubborn stains in your ceramic tile floors. These products are good to use on a daily basis because they rinse free from your ceramic tile floors and they will not break down any of the sealers in your ceramic tile floor grout.

When you are unable to remove the dirt and grime in your ceramic tile floor with a pH neutral tile cleaning product then you need a more aggressive approach to cleaning your ceramic tile floors.  In this case you should start with an alkaline cleaning product mixed with hot water.

• Mix the alkaline tile and grout cleaning product according to the manufacturers instructions with the hottest tap water available.  Hot water will always clean better then cold water for any type of cleaning.  Cleaning ceramic tile floors is not any different.
• Apply the hot alkaline cleaning solution to the ceramic tile floor with a mop or scrub pad. Ensure that the tile and grout is totally saturated with the hot cleaning solution.  Do not let the cleaning solution dry on the ceramic tile floor.
• Let the hot alkaline cleaning solution dwell for 20 minutes on the ceramic tile floor and grout.  Let the alkaline cleaning solution have time to react with the dirt, grease and grime to emulsify these contaminates from your tile and grout.
• You should take an aggressive scrub pad and scrub your grout lines while the alkaline cleaning solution is dwelling in on your ceramic tile floors.  Typically the grout is the most difficult thing to clean on a ceramic tile floor.  Keep scrubbing the grout until you are satisfied that the the grout lines are as clean as they are going to get.
• Extract the dirty alkaline cleaning solution from your ceramic tile floor and grout.  You can use a wet vac to assist you in extracting the dirty alkaline cleaning solution off of your tile and grout.  Then go over your ceramic tile floor with a mop and bucket of water to thoroughly rinse away the dirty alkaline cleaning solution from your tile and grout.
• Dry off your ceramic tile floor with a clean dry towel.  This will help to remove any remaining dirty alkaline cleaning residue from your ceramic tile floor.
• Inspect the ceramic tile floor to see your cleaning result.  If the ceramic tile floor and grout is clean then you can go and seal your ceramic tile floor.
• If the grout still looks dirty then you need to clean your floor with the acidic cleaning solution.  Mix the acidic tile and grout cleaning solution with warm water and apply it to the ceramic tile floor. Cleaning ceramic tile floors with acidic cleaning products can be scary for some people. These type of acidic products for cleaning ceramic tile floors are safe to use as long as you wear protective gloves and do not let the acidic cleaning product sit on your skin for too long.
• You should see the grout fizz clean with the acidic tile and grout cleaning product.  It is not necessary to let the acidic cleaning product dwell on the tile and grout when you clean ceramic tile floors. Just mop the acidic cleaning product down and extract the residue the same way you did with the alkaline cleaning product.
• After using the acidic cleaning product then it is necessary to neutralize the acid in the grout.  You do not want to leave the grout in an acidic state after cleaning your ceramic tile floors. You should go back over the ceramic tile floor and re clean the floor with the alkaline cleaning solution.  This will neutralize the grout so it is not left in an acidic state.

When using aggressive alkaline and acidic cleaning products to clean ceramic tile floors the sealer that was in the grout will be removed.  You should always re seal the grout with a professional grade sealer designed for sealing ceramic tile floor grout..

After you have thoroughly cleaned and sealed your ceramic tile floor you should use a pH neutral cleaning product to do daily maintenance cleaning of your ceramic tile floors and grout.

The pH neutral cleaning product provide excellant cleaning results without leaving any type of cleaning residue on your ceramic tile floors and grout. Additionally the pH neutral cleaning product will not break down the sealer that was applied to the grout.

To use the pH neutral cleaning product to clean your ceramic tile floors just mix it with hot water according to the manufactures instructions.

Then just mop it on or apply it with a scrub pad. The just mop away the pH neutral cleaning solution from your ceramic tile floor. You may want to go back and rinse the floor after cleaning it with the pH neutral cleaning product but this is typically not necessary. It is also good to have a spray bottle of pH neutral cleaning solution product mixed with water so you can clean any spills that happen on your ceramic tile floors. You can read more information about cleaning ceramic tile floors at the North American Tile Cleaning Organization.