Quarry Tile Cleaning Archives - Glasgow Tile Doctor

Quarry Tile Cleaning

Welcome to my Work History archive where you will find detailed examples of the cleaning and renovation of Quarry tiles carried out in Glasgow

Quarry tiles are a classic hard wearing tile often utilised in high traffic areas such as reception areas, toilets and outdoor patio areas and porches. Although hard wearing Quarry tiles are often neglected and end up hidden under years of grime. If the tiles are structurally sound then often it’s just a question of deep cleaning to extract the dirt and then applying a sealer to enhance their appearance and protect them going forward.

For sealing we usually recommend Tile Doctor Seal and Go which works well on clay tiles such as Quarry and is also water based so doesn’t give off a smell as it dries. When applying a sealer always make sure the floors are dry first as applying a sealer to a damp floor can lead to inconsistent results. Because of this we usually clean and seal floors of this type over two days.

Other problems we face when restoring Quarry tiles usually relate to the removal of surface such as Tile Paint and Carpet Adhesive, for this we have a number of products and methods we can apply to remove coatings and restore the tile to its original appearance.

Below you will find detailed examples of work we have carried out in the past, it should give you some idea of what’s involved and what can be achieved with the right techniques and products.

Bathroom Floor Paisley Before and After Grout Colouring

Refreshing Bathroom Wall and Floor Grout in Paisley

To clean grout we normally recommend a good scrub with Tile Doctor Pro-Clean which is an strong alkaline product, in some cases however the staining cannot be removed completely and the only thing your can do with the exception of re-grouting is to re-colour the grout with a Grout Colourant which are available in ten popular colours.

In the case of this bathroom at a house in Paisley near Glasgow both the floor of the bathroom and the shower wall tiles were in need of a refresh and after a review of possible solutions is was agreed the easiest thing to do would be to re-colour the floor grout with a Light Grey colourant and the wall tiles with a White colourant.

Bathroom Floor Paisley Before Grout Colouring

Shower Wall Tiles Paisley Before Grout Colouring

Cleaning and Colouring Grout

The first step before grout colouring is to give the grout a good scrub with Tile Doctor Pro-Clean to get it as clean as possible before applying the colourant. The grout was then rinsed and then dried ready for the colourant to be applied. You may be surprised to hear but we often find the biggest cause of staining to grout are the dyes contained in soaps and shampoos.

Once the grout is ready it’s a straightforward process of applying the colourant evenly along with thin coats along the grout line working the brush backwards and forwards whilst minimising the amount that gets on the tile. We were not changing the colour of the grout substantially so one coat of colourant was sufficient for both sets of tile.

With two colours being applied we were careful to ensure different brushes were used for each job to avoid any contamination and once the job was complete a damp pad was used to remove excess product from the tile surface.

Bathroom Floor Paisley After Grout Colouring

Shower Wall Tiles Paisley After Grout Colouring

As you can see from the photographs the difference was immediate, the other advantage of the colourant is it forms a barrier over the grout protecting it from staining and making it easier to clean going forward.

Quarry Tile and Grout Cleaning and Colouring in Livingston, West Lothian

Refreshing Bathroom Wall and Floor Grout in Paisley Read More »

Restoring an Old Quarry Tiled Church Floor in Greenock

1 Comment / Greenock Tile Cleaning, Quarry Tile Cleaning, Work History / Steven Thomson

The photographs below are from the Lyle Kirk Church of Scotland in Greenock where we asked to clean the Quarry tiles in the main entrance of the church. As you can imagine the floor is very busy and is constantly in use from parishioners and had now become very unappealing from ingrained dirt and was proving impossible to clean effectively.

Lyle Kirk Church Quarry Tiles Before Cleaning Greenock

Cleaning Old Quarry Tiles

With such an old floor we had to take a lot of care and so using a buffer machine to speed up the process was out of the question. As a result so we cleaned the whole tiled floor including the grout by hand using various strength dilutions of Tile Doctor Remove and Go and then Pro-Clean to remove the years of wax and coatings from the tiles, both products I should mention are safe to use on tile, stone and grout. It was arduous and slow work taking us four days to complete and the floor was given a thorough wash down once clean to remove any trace of cleaning product before sealing.

Dealing with Efflorescence

Whilst cleaning the floor we noticed some signs of efflorescence which is where salts from the ground below evaporate up through the pores in the tile and leave white deposits on the surface of the tile above. The efflorescence was removed easily using Tile Doctor Grout Clean-Up but it alerted us to the fact that normally old floors were traditionally laid directly on compacted earth with no damp proof course and that damp could be an issue that could affect the sealer.

Sealing an old Quarry Tiled Floor

We left the floor to dry off and when we returned being cognizant of the damp issue we chose Tile Doctor Seal and Go Extra to seal the floor, this a new sealing product which is highly breathable and ideal for sealing external tiles or internal tiles where there is a damp problem. Four coats were sufficient and once done the floor looked completely transformed.

Church Floor restored in Greenock

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