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 =)

Many times you can pull up the toilet tank cover – flip it upside down and you will see the manufacture date of the toilet itself (you’ll see the year).

In many cases at least one toilet in the house may be original (doesn’t work on all houses of course) but it’s interesting little bit of info that is most likely nearly useless to you but perhaps it will make you seem really smart to someone in the future!

Toilet tank cover:

Date of toilet manufacture:

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:

Option 1:

Option 2:

And here is what I finally choose:

I ended up purchasing an Hydroforce Olmypus 1200 “portable” (movable cleaning units that create water pressure and suction used in cleaning tile or carpet are known as “portables” – the big green machine in the picture)

A Turbo Force – Turbo Hybrid high pressure tile cleaning tool (the stainless steel and blue tool) and assorted variety of accessories.

I should take a comparison picture of what this stuff looks like NOW because it doesn’t look so shiny… =)

Also – here are some close ups of the turbo hybrid (or “turbo” as we call them).

turbo force turbo hybrid

Notice how the nozzles are angled so the water pressure causes them to spin… also the white border surrounding the edge (the part with the holes/slots in them) is the vacuum port area where all the water gets sucked up at.

Hopefully that gives some visual aid to those people out there who are not yet familiar with exactly what the “turbo” type tools do and how they work.

I also added a steam cleaner to the mix later on. I don’t use it very much but it does have it’s uses.

Here is the basic process:

1. Remove the grout surrounding the tiles to be replaced (this helps reduce/eliminate the transfer of impact vibrations when breaking the tile up)

Dremel tool beind used here:

2. Using an angle grinder and a diamond blade cut and “X” into the tile.

3. Use a hammer and chisel to break out the remaining pieces of tile.

After the tile is removed and pieces have been cleaned up you need to remove the thinset (the cement like adhesive that was used to stick the tile down in the first place) and make the surface flat so the new tile lays flat on the surface.

I’ll make a video about the installing the new tile but I figure this will point you in the right direction.

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

(Money Mailer is a company that sends out postcard like “card decks” in the mail. They sell advertising spots in their card deck that go out to “high end homes” – so they say)

Money Mailer Card Deck Mailing

The article in question is a very accurate concept but what it lacks is exactly what TYPE of marketing and the MESSAGE within the marketing piece.

It’s all well and good to say marketing, marketing, marketing… but no focus on it’s effectiveness is folly.

The message, whether it resonates with it’s recipient and causes them to take action is the real question…

More ineffective marketing is not the answer – especially in these lean economic times…

More on that later but here she is:

CLICK HERE

Hhhmmm…. doesn’t look to secretive to me… it’s a piece of wood with a nail through it!

Actually, this is how my ancestors in the old days use to remove grout:

=)

I actually never cleaned it out… (never occurred to me for some reason) until a while ago because I saw “she” was having trouble sucking things up.

And this is what I found: it looks like I tried to “turbo” up some road kill!

Turbo Hybrid + Road Kill

I’ll do a video on how to do the maintenance on her later.

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

(Thanks to Mike Skala for the 3-D picture above)

The water in your shower floor is meant to drain both while on top of your tile and as the water seeps through the tile and grout… through the floor.

The “shower pan” is what keeps it from leaking outside, through the floor or anywhere else.

When regrouting showers many times you’ll find a big issue because the shower was not built with a correct slop or the water does not drain correctly.

When the shower floor/pan is not built so that the water drains away after it has seeped through the tile – this causes the shower sub floor/shower pan area to stay constantly wet.

This does not mean the shower will leak but it does mean that floor is never properly drying out causing mildew and other maintenance issues.

The video below is me using a tool to remove grout and as I’m using the tool, water is literally SPRAYING up out at me. The shower floor/pan area is soaked with water!

This is the true source of the customers continual mildew issue.

If they do not correct the pan issue they will ALWAYS have a shower floor that requires more work and effort to maintain.

You need to make sure your customers know this as (at least in Florida) it is a fairly common problem for the quick-build home builders to do less than perfect jobs on shower floors.

There are no “tile police” out there. There are no “inspections” for shower floors (although there should be) and the home owner ends up mysteriously having to battle mildew for the rest of their days….

BOOO!

This video shows a guy from GroutShields.com showing how his color sealer product works.

Basic a grout “color sealer” is a type of epoxy-ish product (their chemical make-up can vary but you get the point) which fills in the pores of the grout and covers it.

Grout Color Stains/Color Sealers (called by different names) are pretty much the best type of sealer you can get for grout because they are considered “semi-permanent” and difficult to remove.

They are more time consuming to apply than regular “clear sealers” but are worth the effort in my opinion.

I don’t particularly endorse Grout Shields as I’ve never used their product but the video is helpful…

Brought to you by “Hotfortools” on youtube.com

It looks deceptively simple…doesn’t it?

That’s EXACTLY what they want you to think!

What they don’t tell you is you have to hold it very very still to avoid scratching the lines and the blades don’t last very long.

I would prefer to use the “Fein Multimaster” over this thing… but to each his own…

Fein Multi Master:

Grout Grabber:

Attaches to a sawzall type of tool

Jeff traveled all the way down from North Carolina to come and train with me for three days to learn the ins and outs of the tile and grout cleaning business…

Here is what he had to say:

It has two angled jets that spray high pressure water to “pressure wash” the grout lines. There is also an area for vacuum on the very edge.

Pretty much the most effective way to clean grout quickly and for good $$$!

It gets filled in the grout lines and generally becomes a huge pain in the butt to fully remove.

Wax could come in the form of “mop ‘n glow” or any type of product that claims it will add gloss to the surface – BEWARE!
In this video – keep an eye out for the “smiley face” I drew on the tile and grou and look how long it takes to remove using both the “turbo” (high pressure cleaning tool) as well as the floor scrubber: