This shower was in really rough shape.

Notice how in the first picture the floor looks very very rough. It actually felt very rough/sand papery to the touch and it held dirt like crazy.

I’ve seen this in a few shower where the customer had used extremely strong cleaners, over and over again and they wore down the glaze.

Possibly it could have been defective tile but given the right type of chemical over time it is possible to wear away at the glaze.

This particular shower, even if I could get it reasonably clean, the dirt just sticks to it so fast it’s not worth it.

Also, notice how thick and uneven the grout lines are in this second picture?

This shower had been regrouted before and would have made the process even more difficult.

The customer did not even ask me to look at this shower (thank god) but I DID ask if I could take a picture of it =)

Here is a little guide I made on repairing SMALL areas of cracked grout…

Sanded Caulking: a type of caulking (caulking is a rubbery sealant used to seal all the corners and joints in a shower) which has sand added to match the appearance of sanded grout (the grout usually used on tile floors).

This is especially useful when the grout cracked as a result of slight movement or a settling crack when the grout is likely to crack again.

This is not a good solution for large areas but it is a helpful trick around door thresholds and also if you have a very small hole to fill after you do a cleaning job.

The area in question:

Close up:

Sanded caulking and sponge being used:

Available at Lowes and Home Depot:

After sanded caulking:

After floor has been color sealed to match:

Before:

After:

Grout Color Sealing: Using an epoxy based or similar type of product to fill the pores and surface of a grout line to change the color and seal grout lines – a “semi-permanent” process

Here is a job I did where the customer wanted white grout. Actually it was pure white originally… the truth of the matter is that you can never get it 100% pure-pure white unless you use a color sealer.

Even then it’s best to add just a slight touch of “off whiteness” to the batch.

Pure white is a BAD because even the slightest non-whiteness from below shows through and gives you hard to cover-up inconsistencies.

Whether you can see or not… I did add a tint (a tiny bit) to the “Bright White” colorant to make it a bit off white.

The customer didn’t notice and it turned out great!

Before

After

Here is a during photo for comparison:

During

They didn’t even realize how bad it had gotten until I showed them the end result.

A job like this you could do in 6-8 hours and make between $400 – $600 with about $10 in materials (grout is pretty cheap). Just the right tools and the right know how (along with some sweat =)

Regrout Before

Regrout After

Here is a pretty nasty shower we did a while back – we actually had a LOT of caulking to remove and even took the whole door off in this case.

Here is a pretty bad shower

After

Imagine what the home owner had to say to this!
You can expect to make anywhere from $500-$700 for a full size shower like this… all done in a single day!
Even though showers aren’t my favorite they definitely pay some bills.

Dirty:

Cleaned:

Color Sealed:

Before:

During:

After:

Job was complete in a few hours.

One stage cleaning process using a phosphoric acid based cleaning product diluted at about 8 to 1. Ran the blue scrub brush over the grout lines and then hit it with the turbo hybrid for rinsing and extracting at about 1500 psi.

Floor hadn’t totally dried out yet but you get the point.

Customer was a referral from a past client and also a real estate agent. Also got a decent tip

Just another day.