**The Art of Cleaning Grout and Tile**

When it comes to cleaning grout and tile, there are several steps involved in ensuring that your surface is free from dirt, dust, and debris. In this article, we will walk you through the process of cleaning grout and tile, including the importance of using the right materials and techniques.

**Initial Cleaning**

The first step in cleaning grout and tile is to dump out any water that may be present on the surface. This is because the glue or resin used in the grout can cause it to become cloudy and sticky, which can lead to a film forming on the tile. It's also important to get clean water as often as you need it, especially if the cloudiness starts to appear. Using clean water helps to prevent any residue from building up on the surface.

Next, take a sponge and dip it in the bucket of water that is already in use. The sponge should be wrung out thoroughly to remove any excess water, as this will help prevent the spread of dirt and debris. Begin cleaning the grout lines by working the sponge into the areas between the tile and the surrounding surface. This will help loosen any dirt or debris that may be present.

**Rough Cleaning**

When it comes to rough cleaning, it's not necessary to get your initial clean spot on. The goal is to remove as much of the dirt and debris as possible, rather than achieving a perfect shine. Take your sponge and work it into the water, using a gentle sweeping motion to loosen any stubborn areas.

If you're working with tile or other surfaces that require more attention, such as floor tile, be sure to use a slightly different technique. The principles are similar, but the goal is to get the surface clean and dry in a shorter amount of time. Take your sponge and work it into the water, using a gentle sweeping motion to loosen any dirt or debris.

**Final Cleaning**

After completing your initial cleaning, take a moment to inspect the area for any remaining stains or areas that may need attention. If you notice any remaining dirt or debris, you can use a slightly damp sponge to clean these areas. Be sure to wring out the sponge thoroughly to prevent the spread of dirt and debris.

Next, take a fresh bucket of water and apply it to the surface using a sponge. This will help to remove any remaining residue and ensure that the surface is completely clean. Take your time and work the sponge into the surface, using a gentle sweeping motion to loosen any stubborn areas.

**Drying and Curing**

Once you have completed your final cleaning, allow the surface to dry completely before proceeding. The amount of time required for drying will depend on the manufacturer's instructions and the conditions in which the surface is being used. As a general rule, it's best to let the surface sit for at least 24 hours before using it.

During this time, be careful not to expose the surface to moisture or extreme temperatures. This can cause the adhesive to break down and compromise the integrity of the grout. If you need to clean the surface again during this time, use a dry cloth to wipe away any remaining residue.

**Troubleshooting**

If you notice that your tile is still dirty after completing your cleaning routine, don't worry. There are several common problems that can cause dirt and debris to remain on the surface. One of the most common issues is excess glue or resin in the grout. This can be cleaned using a sponge and water, but be sure to use a gentle sweeping motion to avoid spreading the residue further.

Another common issue is particles from the grout itself. These can be difficult to remove completely, but they can usually be wiped away with a dry cloth once the surface has had time to dry and cure. In some cases, it may be necessary to clean the surface again after this time.

**Final Tips**

When cleaning grout and tile, it's essential to use the right materials and techniques to ensure that your surface is free from dirt and debris. Always use clean water and a sponge that has been wrung out thoroughly to prevent the spread of dirt and debris.

Remember to take your time and work carefully when cleaning sensitive areas, such as joints or surfaces with intricate patterns. The goal is to remove any dirt or debris without causing damage to the surface.

By following these steps and using the right materials and techniques, you can achieve a clean and shiny finish on your grout and tile. With practice and patience, you'll be able to tackle even the toughest cleaning jobs in no time.

**Conclusion**

Cleaning grout and tile is an essential part of maintaining a clean and healthy home. By following these steps and using the right materials and techniques, you can ensure that your surface is free from dirt, dust, and debris. Remember to take your time and work carefully when cleaning sensitive areas, and don't be afraid to troubleshoot common issues.

With practice and patience, you'll become a pro at cleaning grout and tile in no time. So go ahead, give it a try, and see the difference for yourself!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi I'm Shannon from host improvements.com I want to show you how to grow a a tile backsplash so we've got a small piece of backsplash right over here this particular one has a few different products in it everything from metal cover tiles to Stone to Glass so uh it's got a little bit of everything in there we're going to use a urethane based grout so that's a gr that uh won't need to be sealed afterwards it is going to be water and uh stained resistance so that's the type of Gro we're going to use I try to use that type of grow all the time uh first of all they'll be some instructions on the uh product that you use to put these tiles on uh in this case we used a mastic and it'll let you know how many hours or days or whatever you've got to wait before you can grout it so just pay attention to that uh your grout is going to have to sit uh so many hours before uh you know before it's exposed to any grease or anything like that too so just uh read the menu manufacturers instructions and see see what uh they recommend so our tiles these ones have been sitting for a few days so they're more than cured enough to uh do the grouting you want to go around go between in all the grout joints make sure there's none of the mortar or the mastic that you used squirting through there clean it right out so that uh uh you don't have any trouble with the with the grout going in there you don't uh want the mortar or the mastic to be showing so mask off your countertop anything that you don't want to get a little bit of uh Gro on or water or whatever and then you're ready to go so follow the instructions on your grout that you're using particular type that you're using in this case this one here we just had to uh mix it up to get all the binders and glues and everything in it to uh to be thoroughly mixed again we're using a rubber float like this to apply the grout on there so you're just going to Simply scoop some on your actually I'll go over start over at The Far Side scoop some onto your rubber float and you're just going to want to push it and work it into the grout lines there so as you go along you're just working it along you're going to have some that falls off down onto the bottom that's why we've got the tape there and uh you just work your way along filling those all those Gro lines make sure you're working it in there the gro lines are usually you know at least a/4 inch deep so you want to make sure you're getting it right fully back in there not just superficially on the surface cuz uh when it dries it may just uh crack and fall out or not be filled at all so just kind of take your your time moving along there don't ever grow it any more than uh than what it's going to set up and need to be wiped off so you know in this case if I wasn't doing this filming I'd probably Gro this whole thing and then go back and start wiping it off but because of all my talking and blabbering along um I'm just going to do maybe a quarter of it here and wipe it off when you're doing the wiping you're just using uh cool clean uh water and a sponge and you want to ring your sponge out as well as you can so you're us not using any more water than you really need to to uh the more water you add to the to most of the grouts it can weaken their their uh ability to not crack and that sort of thing so just ring it out as best you can so you're not using excessive water plus the more water you got as running down the wall you're just making a big mess so okay so I'm just working my way along there trying to get it worked into every little spot just get right down there so you can see what you got I'm just going to go a little bit further if you get too far ahead of yourself with the grout and not cleaning up the excess quick enough you know like you can see this stuff on here uh especially with the urethane you start getting a lot of uh uh glue residue stuck to the tiles little uh particles of the grout stuck to the tiles to the face of them where you don't want them so it's important to stay caught up with your cleaning if you're doing a big area you might want to have two people so one person's applying it and one person's doing the clean up as you go sort of thing it does need a bit of time to set up but um like this stuff here doesn't take very long this is probably it's already starting to stick on the tiles a little bit but not real bad this will probably be the last little bit I apply and I'll go back and clean it up if you can kind of work diagonally across the the grout lines and you know so that the Trel isn't falling into them and cleaning them right out if you go Dag L it kind of fills them right up flush to the top Okay so we've got that there get a couple of these bigger chunks off of the I'm just going to get my sponge here and I just uh rang that out really well so it's not dripping running all over the place and it's it takes a little bit of work to get this clean you want to make sure it wipes up well and you aren't leaving that residue like I said stuck on the walls or the counters or surface of the tiles so just kind of I like to get the excess cleaned up first cuz otherwise if you leave that on that tape you end up dragging your uh sponge through it and uh not an knowingly you're putting it back on the wall once you get to actually cleaning the tiles so okay so then uh I'm just working away on the tile on the edge of the molding there on the face of the tile just kind of scrubbing along it's a little more difficult when you're working with such a small area and such a big sponge so you just want to work your way along you can see some of the pieces went up on top of there so I just want to knock that down trying not to rub on the painted wall too much if I can because you uh usually when that dries it ends up leaving a bit of a streak there from the uh glues from the gro so it leaves a bit of a film I guess would be a better word for it okay so that's about what you'd want to do now once that dries a little bit again You' want to go over it with clean water and and clean sponge again that we can kind of get to that point I'll gr the rest of that wall and then uh clean it and then I can go back and clean all of it again so so takes takes a little bit of time like I said but it's definitely not something that uh you know most doyour sers can definitely handle this um it's it's more about especially for your first couple times not getting too much Gro applied before you've done your cleanup because that's where you're going to run into a problem is if you've left your clean up too long left your gr sorry too long before cleaning it up and then you're going to have to really scrub to get that stuff off the tiles or whatever it's on okay so I'm just double checking those grout lines make sure it's all full it's a pretty busy pattern so have a good look make sure that uh you got it all dump out your water and uh get clean water as often as you figure you need it if it starts getting really cloudy uh you're better off to get some clean fresh water cuz that cloudiness is uh is the glue and the binder and that sort of thing in there and it's just going to leave a film on your tile so especially important once you get down to your last couple cleaning wipes when you're doing this rough clean doesn't matter quite as much it doesn't have to be quite as clean cuz you know you're going over it right away again I'm just kind of working the sponge in the water there to get the the uh Gro off that I just wiped off the wall if you're doing a floor or something like that a lot of the principles are the same and uh it's a little quicker but again you just got to make sure you don't Dr more than you can reach to get clean again because you don't want to be walking on it if you're doing floor tile you don't want to walk on it until it's been cured if you can avoid it okay so get your initial cleaning all done up like that just have another look make sure you didn't wipe any joints right out or create any voids looks pretty good I'm going to uh get a fresh bucket of water that'll take me a couple minutes and that'll let that sit a little longer too and then I can give it a final cleaning and and we should be good okay so this is uh sat here for maybe I don't know four or five minutes something like that it started to uh dry out a little bit there's still a few little sand particles on the face of the tiles but they're they're even just rolling off my finger so uh so this should be the last cleaning I'm not sure if you can see a little bit of residue it really shows up on these shiny metal tiles you can see it there right now if I take my finger and just shine it up a little bit it goes away I'm not sure if you can quite pick that up on there but anyways so I've got a new sponge clean clean pale of water I'm just wiping across to get that last little bit of glue off of there again I'm not using much water at all on the sponge I'm ringing it out making sure it stays clean and uh that's about it let get that little bit off there okay so just uh play it play it with your own judgment whether you're done cleaning or not a little bit of sand particles or a little bit of particles from the grout itself after you've cleaned it a couple times usually aren't a big deal it's hard to get rid of them all in the cleaning process as long as they aren't sticking quite hard to the top excuse me to the tile you'll be able to go and just wipe them off with a dry cloth once uh this has had a chance to sit overnight so you know you don't have to be too particular about that it's the uh it's the glue amounts and actually I'm still getting a little bit here I'm going to have to clean it once more it's the glue residue that usually leaves the most staining now if you get it all clean you think you're good you come back the next day and there's some of that residue on there you can use like a scotch bra kind of an SOS uh pad on there a little bit damp and just uh shine it up a little bit it'll clean that off um just be careful in case your tile is easily scratched or something but generally most tile won't scratch by using an SOS but um this metal might so you got to be a little bit careful if you're really scrubbing um so that's it so then uh I would just peel off this tape and uh let that sit like I said for as long as the manufacturer says it needs to sit depending on your conditions and then you should be all right so I think that's that's got it pretty much wrapped up like I said I'm going to clean that once more but you got the general idea important thing is just getting it worked into the grout lines well and uh letting it sit long enough to uh completely cure before you you know like I said are splashing it with grease or anything like that so so thanks a lot for watching if you like this please click the thumbs up icon on the screen there and uh also if you have any comments about this or anything else just come to the Forum on our website at house-improvements.com and uh please direct all your responses there it's just easier for me to uh respond back to you and it it helps other people too if you post up a question they might have a similar question as well okay so uh thanks a lot for watchinghi I'm Shannon from host improvements.com I want to show you how to grow a a tile backsplash so we've got a small piece of backsplash right over here this particular one has a few different products in it everything from metal cover tiles to Stone to Glass so uh it's got a little bit of everything in there we're going to use a urethane based grout so that's a gr that uh won't need to be sealed afterwards it is going to be water and uh stained resistance so that's the type of Gro we're going to use I try to use that type of grow all the time uh first of all they'll be some instructions on the uh product that you use to put these tiles on uh in this case we used a mastic and it'll let you know how many hours or days or whatever you've got to wait before you can grout it so just pay attention to that uh your grout is going to have to sit uh so many hours before uh you know before it's exposed to any grease or anything like that too so just uh read the menu manufacturers instructions and see see what uh they recommend so our tiles these ones have been sitting for a few days so they're more than cured enough to uh do the grouting you want to go around go between in all the grout joints make sure there's none of the mortar or the mastic that you used squirting through there clean it right out so that uh uh you don't have any trouble with the with the grout going in there you don't uh want the mortar or the mastic to be showing so mask off your countertop anything that you don't want to get a little bit of uh Gro on or water or whatever and then you're ready to go so follow the instructions on your grout that you're using particular type that you're using in this case this one here we just had to uh mix it up to get all the binders and glues and everything in it to uh to be thoroughly mixed again we're using a rubber float like this to apply the grout on there so you're just going to Simply scoop some on your actually I'll go over start over at The Far Side scoop some onto your rubber float and you're just going to want to push it and work it into the grout lines there so as you go along you're just working it along you're going to have some that falls off down onto the bottom that's why we've got the tape there and uh you just work your way along filling those all those Gro lines make sure you're working it in there the gro lines are usually you know at least a/4 inch deep so you want to make sure you're getting it right fully back in there not just superficially on the surface cuz uh when it dries it may just uh crack and fall out or not be filled at all so just kind of take your your time moving along there don't ever grow it any more than uh than what it's going to set up and need to be wiped off so you know in this case if I wasn't doing this filming I'd probably Gro this whole thing and then go back and start wiping it off but because of all my talking and blabbering along um I'm just going to do maybe a quarter of it here and wipe it off when you're doing the wiping you're just using uh cool clean uh water and a sponge and you want to ring your sponge out as well as you can so you're us not using any more water than you really need to to uh the more water you add to the to most of the grouts it can weaken their their uh ability to not crack and that sort of thing so just ring it out as best you can so you're not using excessive water plus the more water you got as running down the wall you're just making a big mess so okay so I'm just working my way along there trying to get it worked into every little spot just get right down there so you can see what you got I'm just going to go a little bit further if you get too far ahead of yourself with the grout and not cleaning up the excess quick enough you know like you can see this stuff on here uh especially with the urethane you start getting a lot of uh uh glue residue stuck to the tiles little uh particles of the grout stuck to the tiles to the face of them where you don't want them so it's important to stay caught up with your cleaning if you're doing a big area you might want to have two people so one person's applying it and one person's doing the clean up as you go sort of thing it does need a bit of time to set up but um like this stuff here doesn't take very long this is probably it's already starting to stick on the tiles a little bit but not real bad this will probably be the last little bit I apply and I'll go back and clean it up if you can kind of work diagonally across the the grout lines and you know so that the Trel isn't falling into them and cleaning them right out if you go Dag L it kind of fills them right up flush to the top Okay so we've got that there get a couple of these bigger chunks off of the I'm just going to get my sponge here and I just uh rang that out really well so it's not dripping running all over the place and it's it takes a little bit of work to get this clean you want to make sure it wipes up well and you aren't leaving that residue like I said stuck on the walls or the counters or surface of the tiles so just kind of I like to get the excess cleaned up first cuz otherwise if you leave that on that tape you end up dragging your uh sponge through it and uh not an knowingly you're putting it back on the wall once you get to actually cleaning the tiles so okay so then uh I'm just working away on the tile on the edge of the molding there on the face of the tile just kind of scrubbing along it's a little more difficult when you're working with such a small area and such a big sponge so you just want to work your way along you can see some of the pieces went up on top of there so I just want to knock that down trying not to rub on the painted wall too much if I can because you uh usually when that dries it ends up leaving a bit of a streak there from the uh glues from the gro so it leaves a bit of a film I guess would be a better word for it okay so that's about what you'd want to do now once that dries a little bit again You' want to go over it with clean water and and clean sponge again that we can kind of get to that point I'll gr the rest of that wall and then uh clean it and then I can go back and clean all of it again so so takes takes a little bit of time like I said but it's definitely not something that uh you know most doyour sers can definitely handle this um it's it's more about especially for your first couple times not getting too much Gro applied before you've done your cleanup because that's where you're going to run into a problem is if you've left your clean up too long left your gr sorry too long before cleaning it up and then you're going to have to really scrub to get that stuff off the tiles or whatever it's on okay so I'm just double checking those grout lines make sure it's all full it's a pretty busy pattern so have a good look make sure that uh you got it all dump out your water and uh get clean water as often as you figure you need it if it starts getting really cloudy uh you're better off to get some clean fresh water cuz that cloudiness is uh is the glue and the binder and that sort of thing in there and it's just going to leave a film on your tile so especially important once you get down to your last couple cleaning wipes when you're doing this rough clean doesn't matter quite as much it doesn't have to be quite as clean cuz you know you're going over it right away again I'm just kind of working the sponge in the water there to get the the uh Gro off that I just wiped off the wall if you're doing a floor or something like that a lot of the principles are the same and uh it's a little quicker but again you just got to make sure you don't Dr more than you can reach to get clean again because you don't want to be walking on it if you're doing floor tile you don't want to walk on it until it's been cured if you can avoid it okay so get your initial cleaning all done up like that just have another look make sure you didn't wipe any joints right out or create any voids looks pretty good I'm going to uh get a fresh bucket of water that'll take me a couple minutes and that'll let that sit a little longer too and then I can give it a final cleaning and and we should be good okay so this is uh sat here for maybe I don't know four or five minutes something like that it started to uh dry out a little bit there's still a few little sand particles on the face of the tiles but they're they're even just rolling off my finger so uh so this should be the last cleaning I'm not sure if you can see a little bit of residue it really shows up on these shiny metal tiles you can see it there right now if I take my finger and just shine it up a little bit it goes away I'm not sure if you can quite pick that up on there but anyways so I've got a new sponge clean clean pale of water I'm just wiping across to get that last little bit of glue off of there again I'm not using much water at all on the sponge I'm ringing it out making sure it stays clean and uh that's about it let get that little bit off there okay so just uh play it play it with your own judgment whether you're done cleaning or not a little bit of sand particles or a little bit of particles from the grout itself after you've cleaned it a couple times usually aren't a big deal it's hard to get rid of them all in the cleaning process as long as they aren't sticking quite hard to the top excuse me to the tile you'll be able to go and just wipe them off with a dry cloth once uh this has had a chance to sit overnight so you know you don't have to be too particular about that it's the uh it's the glue amounts and actually I'm still getting a little bit here I'm going to have to clean it once more it's the glue residue that usually leaves the most staining now if you get it all clean you think you're good you come back the next day and there's some of that residue on there you can use like a scotch bra kind of an SOS uh pad on there a little bit damp and just uh shine it up a little bit it'll clean that off um just be careful in case your tile is easily scratched or something but generally most tile won't scratch by using an SOS but um this metal might so you got to be a little bit careful if you're really scrubbing um so that's it so then uh I would just peel off this tape and uh let that sit like I said for as long as the manufacturer says it needs to sit depending on your conditions and then you should be all right so I think that's that's got it pretty much wrapped up like I said I'm going to clean that once more but you got the general idea important thing is just getting it worked into the grout lines well and uh letting it sit long enough to uh completely cure before you you know like I said are splashing it with grease or anything like that so so thanks a lot for watching if you like this please click the thumbs up icon on the screen there and uh also if you have any comments about this or anything else just come to the Forum on our website at house-improvements.com and uh please direct all your responses there it's just easier for me to uh respond back to you and it it helps other people too if you post up a question they might have a similar question as well okay so uh thanks a lot for watching\n"