A steamer will help you achieve a thorough and sanitised clean of your grout and tiles, without vigorous brush scrubbing on your part. Many steam cleaners come with suitable attachments made for effectively lifting dirt and grime out of the grout between tiles.
Steam cleaners are fantastic to clean porous tiles, smooth tiles and the are the best way to clean grout lines. These surfaces are usually hard to clean because of their crevices and pores, but hot steam flows deep into every nook and cranny to effectively loosen dirt, grime and grease.
What do professionals use to clean grout? Whether you believe it or not, most professionals use a solution of white vinegar and water with a 1:1 ratio. This solution is often more effective than dedicated Ph-neutral grout cleaners.
Sealing the Grout after Cleaning
After you have cleaned your grout and it looks neat and beautiful again, it's necessary to reseal it immediately. The cleaning procedure removes any remaining seal, which may waste your efforts. Without sealing, your grout's appearance will not take much time to deteriorate.
Steam clean the grout
This method works well because the high heat from the steam effectively loosens up mold, dirt, hardened soap residue, and other debris. The loosened gunk will then be carried by the remaining water, and can be removed by scrubbing the grout.
Fill your spray bottle with a 1:1 solution of vinegar and water and spray the work area generously. Let the solution sit for about five minutes, then follow up with a grout brush or a scrub brush. If you don't have one of these, a toothbrush works in a pinch. Rinse with warm water.
So, where does the dirt go when you steam clean? Actually, it doesn't go anywhere. Instead, the heat and vapour of steam cleaning ensure that all the unwanted substances or stains are fully broken down and easy to get rid of.
Steam cleaners are a wonderful way to deep-clean many types of surfaces since they don't use harsh chemicals. Hard surfaces easily cleanable with a steam cleaner include countertops, kitchen & bathroom fixtures, some types of flooring, as well as other impervious surfaces.
The easiest way to clean grout without scrubbing involves hydrogen peroxide and baking soda. Mix the two into a paste with some dish soap and apply to the grout lines. Alternatively, you can use a cleaning solution of water, vinegar, lemon juice, and baking soda.
Cement-based grout is extremely porous—meaning it collects grime like a sponge. All the scrubbing in the world won't remove dirt that seeps deep into your grout. Your time (and your knees and back for that matter) are worth the cost of having the experts clean your tile, stone, and grout for you.
Do not use vinegar or baking soda to clean tile grout. Alkaline cleaners are a better choice than vinegar or baking soda because grout contains cementitious mortar that can be dissolved by acidic cleaners, including vinegar. Vinegar and other acids are also a bad idea for stone tile because the acid can etch the stone.
How often should you clean grout? Grout cleaning should be done pretty regularly if you want to kick butt and get results. At least once a month, you should try and scrub any stained grout clean. (Even better, try to clean stains on grout as soon as you see them to prevent setting.)
Deep-Clean Your Grout Annually
Generally, most households should deep-clean their grout tiles once per year. You can do this yourself or hire a professional grout and tile cleaning service to handle the job. However, some factors may increase the frequency of your grout cleanings.
Steam clean your tiles and grout
Combining intense heat and high pressure vapours, steam cleaning can help dislodge grime, almost as if by magic! Moreover, steam cleaning tiles also serves to disinfect your tiles by killing bacteria – this is an important consideration if you're cleaning a kitchen or bathroom.
Method 2: How to Get Grout White Again with Lemon Juice or White Vinegar. Saturate the grout with lemon juice, a mild disinfectant that gets rid of grout stains naturally. You can also use white vinegar for chemical-free grout cleaning.
Grout that hasn't been sealed, needs to be resealed, or is in poor shape should not be cleaned with vinegar. The vinegar penetrates into the pores of the grout, further weakening the material. Over time, vinegar will deteriorate the condition of the grout by etching or wearing it away.
Myth: Bleach is great for deep cleaning tile and grout.
But frequent use of bleach can eventually weaken the grout's structure, causing it to become brittle and deteriorate.
Cons of Steam Cleaners
There are a few disadvantages to using steam cleaners. One is that they can be expensive. Another downside is that they require a lot of water, which means you will need to empty and refill the tank often. Finally, steam cleaners can take longer to clean than other methods.
What can't I steam clean? Steam can warp unsealed floors, melt plastic, and cause laminate floors to swell. Don't steam clean these surfaces. Other surfaces on the do-not-clean list: cold windows, unglazed tile, those covered in water-based paint, and delicate surfaces.
Just like the bigger steam cleaners, handheld steam cleaners are capable of removing stuck on dirt and grime while killing bacteria, dust mites, germs, viruses, lice, bed bugs, and more. However, the usage of the handheld steam cleaners is limited to smaller, light cleaning tasks.
Our testing has found that all steam mops remove stains fairly well, with marginal differences, and are likely slightly better than a regular mop and bucket due to the heat and vapour produced by the steam.
No Residue
Many carpet cleaning methods that use dry cleaners and sprays will leave a layer of residue on your carpet. Steam cleaning doesn't do that, so you don't have to worry about additional residue left on your carpet fibers.
When steam penetrates surface pores, it removes dirt, debris, bacteria, and other tiny elements with hot vapor molecules. These vapor molecules are so hot that they are able to kill even the strongest pathogens like E. Coli and Salmonella from your home's surfaces.