Cleaning the Grout!

[Dennis H]

Yep! Rainy today so guess what I've been doing? Time to clean the floor grout. I've been wanting to get to this project for a few months now as the grout has lost some of it's luster what with the weekly cleaning and mopping. Deb asked me last summer how big a job I thought it would be. Well, today was my day! After watching several videos, it appeared a toilet bowl cleaner was the choice of the 'pros'...at least the video pros. Armed with the info, off to the market I went. Amazingly many of the stores were out or at least in very short supply of cleaning products period. Guess everyone is cleaner these days. Anyway, I stopped at my local Home Depot to pick up a grout brush. They carry two. A cheapie $3, and an expensive $8. I splurged and went big. Actually the 8 dollar one seemed more robust and I think it will do a better job with less elbow grease. While there, they have a grout cleaner made by ZEP. I bought a bottle of that too. On my way home I stopped at a Dollar Tree to see what they had and picked up a bottle of Awesome!  Upon arriving back at the coach I tried both products and found that the $1 bottle of Awesome! worked a bit better than the $8 ZEP product! So today I cleaned all the tile in our coach. Spray liberally a small area, about 6 tiles. Let sit for a minute or so and start brushing. After a liberal brushing, wipe the tiles with clean water. Keep a pail with you and a clean rag. Then move on across the floor until you're done. I then filled another tub with clean hot water, added some food grade vinegar and scrubbed the tile again with a washcloth. I completed the process with another clean tub of vinegar water and a microfiber cloth to polish the floor to a beautiful shine. Meanwhile my wife was out getting her hair done and a manicure. She was pleasantly surprised at how clean the floor was. All in all it took me about 4 hours to complete the job. If you've been contemplating cleaning your grout, here are the items I used. For less than $10 bucks you can make your wife happy. Cheaper than MickeyDs!!!

[Byron J]

Nice writeup!  Thanks.  I'll give those products a try.