Saturday, October 6, 2012

Homemade Grout Cleaner

By Melody
Well, my kitchen floor is in serious need of some grout cleaning.  I would rather clean my stove than clean the grout.  And, I only clean my stove annually...if that!!  So, you can imagine the germs lurking within the in-betweens of the tiles of my kitchen floor.  So, I set out on a search for a recipe for a good homemade grout cleaner.  I found one on Lowe's Home Improvement facebook page.  The recipe is as follows:

7 cups warm water
1/2 cup baking soda
1/3 cup ammonia
1/4 cup vinegar

I mixed it up, got out my handy-dandy spankin' new grout cleaner brush (think giant tooth brush), and went to town.  I generously used the concoction since it mixes up a large amount of cleaner.  I let it set on the grout awhile after scrubbing.  Let me tell ya, I scrubbed and scrubbed, and my brush definitely went through hell!  The thing now looks like an excessively over-used toothbrush.  After I was finished, I did notice a change, but not as much a difference as I had hoped for.

This is a lot of work, and I had hoped for a little more of a result without having to scrub so hard.  Next time, I think I will use one of the recipes I found that utilizes bleach instead.  Bleach would really eat at that grime a little more, in my opinion. If I did this recipe again, I would use less water -- maybe only five cups of water, as opposed to seven. 

Here's my results:
BEFORE


AFTER

I did a third step and steam cleaned my kitchen floor after wiping down the scrubbing.  This seemed to do the trick.  Still next time I tackle the grout, I will try a recipe with bleach, and see if that makes a difference.
AFTER STEAM CLEANING FLOOR AFTER CLEANING GROUT

1 comment:

  1. I think it was kind of a success, but I can just imagine the time and the energy that you consumed while working on those. Looking for professionals that can clean tile grouts can always be the best option. Nevertheless, thanks for posting!

    ReplyDelete