We have just completed our second bathroom and the tiling looks great. I have not sealed the tile/grout in either bathroom. We have been using the first bathroom for about 6 months now. Should I? and if so, what do you recommend I use? There is alot of grout in the one bathroom, but the other one is pretty straight forward. How does it go on?
Thanks for your help.
Comment Guidelines
We welcome your feedback on Houseandhome.com. H&H reserves the right to remove any unsuitable personal remarks made about the bloggers, hosts, homeowners and/or guests we feature. Please keep your comments focused on decorating, design, cooking and other lifestyle topics. Adopt a tone you would be willing to use in person and do not make slanderous remarks or use denigrating language. If you see a comment that you believe violates any of the guidelines outlined above, please click “Alert a Moderator.” Thank you.
Yes, you should go for sealing of grout lines otherwisew it will become dirt prone. You can take help of certified retoration company in this purpose. Grout sealing service are provided by them at very affordable rates.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Debra.
To drive home the point that sealing cement based wall tile grout on shower walls is super important, you can see pictures of my work on my web site at:
http://users.usinternet.com/nkelebay
I include my web site URL in my ad in the Winnipeg Renter's Guide so that prospective tenants can see what the suites are like without actually having to come down to the building. That way if they can't live without a balcony or underground parking, it saves us both some time.
I retiled all of the bathrooms from the late 1980's to early 1990's, and they still look exactly the same (no mildew on any of the grout) now as when those pictures were taken. If they didn't, then prospective tenants would call that "false advertising" and I'd lose their business before I even had it. I'd be better off not to show any pictures in that case. But, the pictures are included because prospective tenants will see exactly the same thing in person as online.
And, of course, with 21 apartments, the ceramic tiling I do has to last as long as possible. If, for example, my ceramic tiling only lasted 20 years, then on average, I'd be having to retile a bathroom every year by now. I don't want or need that extra work, so I'd be a fool NOT to seal my bathroom wall tile grout, and to seal it well.
I totally agree!Great info
Chickadee:
If it were my house, I probably would seal the grout on the floor, and I'd use a film forming sealer to do it. Sometimes people will spread the sealer over the whole floor with a paint roller, and I don't like that idea at all because (depending on the kind of tile you have) the sealer could result in a smooth floor that would be very slippery when it's wet.
A bathroom floor is one of those situations where you don't really need the sealer that much because it doesn't get wet often and when it does get wet it's usually with clean water. But, sealing the grout won't do any harm at all, and it may help prevent a stain somewhere down the road if someone ever spills something like Saniflush on the floor. I've never dyed my hair, so I don't know if hair dye comes as a liquid that could potentially stain grout.
(You want to use a film forming sealer on the grout on ceramic tile counter tops and kitchen tile floors to prevent stains.)
So I'd do it. It won't do any harm, and it might prevent a stain.
(But, it also depends on how big your tiles are. The larger the tiles, the fewer linear feet of grout line there is to seal, and the smaller the job you're looking at. If you have small tiles but want to seal the floor grout anyhow, then I'd probably do it with a paint roller and buy some rubber backed bath mats to provide good traction in that bathroom.)
Be aware that nail polish remover (which is often acetone or a mixture of acetone and amyl acetate) will dissolve all acrylic materials, including acrylic grout sealers. So, if you seal your bathroom floor grout, maybe find somewhere else to use nail polish remover.
Wow thank you for your lengthy reply. I will look for the grout sealer you mentioned in Home Depot. I have ceramic tile on the floors as well. Do you suggest I seal the grout there as well?
Wow thank you for your lengthy reply. I will look for the grout sealer you mentioned in Home Depot. I have ceramic tile on the floors as well. Do you suggest I seal the grout there as well?
Chickadee:
One of the problems of these Q&A forums is that the people asking questions don't provide information that's obvious to them. That's because it's so obvious to them that it doesn't even occur to them that it's not obvious to everyone else.
This new ceramic tiling in your bathroom... are we talking about ceramic floor tiles or ceramic wall tiles? If it's ceramic WALL tiles, read on...
In a nutshell, the answer is ABSOLUTELY! If you don't seal your grout, then in a few years it'll have mildew growing on it. (however, read the PS below)
Here's what you should know about grout sealers:
Generally speaking, it's the erosion of the shower spray that wears off the grout sealer, and so the generally accepted thinking is that a penetrating sealer will last longer on a shower wall than a film forming sealer. Penetrating sealers are absorbed into the grout and occupy the spaces between grout particles where the capillary pressure (causing the absorbtion of water) is sufficient to cause the sealer to be absorbed. That lowers the grout's ability to absorb water, and so the result is that water drips off porous grout rather than gets absorbed in it.
Think of an aquarium full of marbles. If you fill it with water and then drain it, not all of the water will drain away because there will be water held behind at the points of contact between the marbles due to capillary pressure. If, instead, you could fill the aquarium with clear liquid plastic, then allow the liquid plastic to drain out, and allow time for the stuff remaining behind to solidify, that system would have no remaining capillary pressure by which to absorb water. You could prove that by filling it with water, and if you measured the amount of water that drained out, it would be virtually the same as the amount you poured in. Penetrating sealers prevent water absorbion into the grout in exactly the same way, and keeping the grout dry inside discourages mildew from growing on that grout.
Since the penetrating sealer is located INSIDE the grout, it's not eroded by the shower spray the way film forming sealers (which simply form a clear plastic film over the grout) are.
However, my own experience is that penetrating sealers can be quirky, and not always work the way they should. I've had people tell me that they've applied the recommended 2 coats of penetrating sealer, and still the grout absorbs water (because it turns darker when you put a drop of water on it, and the only thing that could cause that is water absorbtion into the grout). So, even though penetrating sealers are considered "better/longer lasting" than film forming sealers, they have more of a reputation of being quirky and sporadically not working as advertised. Film forming sealers form a film you can inspect with a flashlight, so that you can SEE a protective film over the grout, and that's reassuring to someone like myself who's business success depends largely on having clean and attractive bathrooms to attract desireable tenants.
There are two kinds of film forming grout sealers; silicone based and acrylic. The problem with silicone based grout sealers is that you can't really apply more silicone based grout sealer onto old silicone based grout sealer; you have to remove the old silicone based grout sealer (with acetone or a stripper) before you can re-seal the grout, and that's a pain in the butt. People will argue that you can, but the bottom line is that the new silicone based grout sealer won't stick to the old silicone based grout sealer very well. It's the same story for lots of silicone based products; nothing sticks well to silicone caulk; not even silicone caulk.
Acrylic grout sealers, on the other hand, are just like latex paint. You can clean the ceramic tiling of soap scum and add another coat or two of acrylic grout sealer to the grout lines and it will stick well to the old acrylic grout sealer.
So, take the time to find out from the manufacturer's 1-800 phone number whether the sealer is penetrating or firm forming, and if it's film forming, if it's silicone based or acrylic. I don't want to tell you NOT to use a penetrating sealer because if it works for you, it'll work well. However, in my books, the most reliable product to use is an acrylic film forming sealer.
One product line that I'd recommend you look at is DuPont's "Stone Tech" line of sealers:
http://www2.dupont.com/Stone_Tech_Professional/en_US/products/Protect/protect.html
The only reason I'm recommending the Stone Tech line is that I'd try it myself if I was ever looking for a better grout sealer, and that's only because DuPont is a chemical company and has the chemists on staff to produce a good quality grout sealer, and they wouldn't market it under their own name unless they knew it worked well.
DuPont doesn't come right out and say if their Stone Tech Grout Sealer is a penetrating sealer or a film forming sealer, but from what I've read, it seems to be a penetrating sealer. I've never used it, but if I were in your shoes, I would try this product first, and if it didn't work, then I'd switch to an acrylic film forming sealer. The Stone Tech line has a variety of different sealers that all seem to overlap in what they're meant to be applied to. You can use the "Bullet Proof" sealer, the "Heavy Duty" sealer, the "Advanced Grout Sealer" or the "Grout Sealer" on your grout to get good protection.
The acrylic film forming sealer I'd use is simply called "Grout Sealer", and is made by a company called "Glaze 'N Seal" of California:
http://www.glaze-n-seal.com/sealers.html
I use Glaze 'N Seal's "Grout Sealer" on all of the bathroom ceramic wall tiles in my building, and I can tell you that it forms a very hard and durable film and that three coats of it will last at least 10 years. It was the most similar acrylic film forming sealer that I could find after the "Ceramaseal" from the Bostik Corporation that I used before was discontinued.
If you don't want to go through the bother of importing this grout sealer from the US, the only other acrylic film forming grout sealer I'd recommend is TileLab's "Gloss Sealer and Finish" sold at Home Depot, and the only reason I'd recommend it is that Tile Lab's "Heavy Duty Cleaner and Stripper" makes fast and easy work of stripping this sealer off so that you can replace it (even though it's acrylic so that you can just put on more coats of sealer. And, of course, Tile Lab's top of the line grout sealer is their SurfaceGard penetrating sealer, also available at Home Depot which I have only used once, and it didn't seem to work for me, and I don't know why not.
Sealing grout is as easy as painting a straight line. First thing to do is go to any artist supply store and buy a paint brush about the same width as your grout lines. I prefer using "script" paint brushes because they have longer bristles for less dipping and less dripping. In one hand you hold both a trouble light with a 7 (or 13) watt compact fluorescent bulb in it so it doesn't get hot, and a small container (typically a photographic film container) with your grout sealer in it. In the other hand, you have your artist's paint brush. And, in your shirt pocket you have a paper towel so that you can wipe up any grout sealer than drips off the grout lines and onto the tile face.
You simply paint the grout sealer onto the horizontal grout lines using the brush and telling that you're covering the whole grout line by the reflection of the light off the grout sealer. If you can paint a straight line, you can seal grout.
For the vertical grout lines, you don't actually paint it on unless you want to. It's faster to simply get a drop of sealer started at the top of the grout line and simply allow it to drip down the grout line, thereby applying itself. Just add more sealer when the drop slows down. Here, the sealer will tend to veer off the grout line and run down the tile face, so you may have to wipe it off with the paper towel and continue fairly frequently, especially on the first coat. I typically apply three coats of grout sealer.
PS: (and you don't need to know this, but it's informative)
When a tiling contractor tells you that it's not necessary to seal grout, then he's telling you a half truth. There are only three situations I can think of where it's not necessary to seal the grout on the new ceramic tiling around a bathtub:
1. There's no shower head. If you can only have baths, but not showers, then the amount of water that gets on the ceramic tiling is minimal, doesn't happen often and is confined to the bottom few inches of the tiling.
2. There are two kinds of grout; cement based and epoxy. Epoxy grouts don't need to be sealed because they aren't porous. However, it's rare to see epoxy grouts used in residential applications because cement based grouts are far more user-friendly. A tiling contractor will only use an epoxy grout (without charging significantly more for the work) if he's doing his own bathroom.
3. Cement based grouts really don't need to be sealed for the first year or so simply because of the high alkalinity of the grout during that first year. Mildew won't grow on grout during that first year because of the high alkalinity. Any product that's made with lime (also called "hydrated lime", "slaked lime" or "calcium hydroxide" Ca(OH)2 (close bracket) whether it be grout, brick mortar, plaster or concrete) will be highly alkaline (which means opposite of acidic) during the first year or two of it's life. It's those -OH groups in the material that make it highly alkaline. But, there's something called "The Lime Cycle" that exists in nature whereby CO2 from the air reacts with those -OH groups and converts the calcium hydroxide into calcium carbonate (also called "limestone", CaCO3).
http://www.graymont.com/what_is_lime.shtml
That conversion from lime into limestone typically takes about a year or so, but you'd be pushing your luck if you waited two years.
Finally, beware of any tiling contractors that tell you they'll seal the grout for an extra $25 or $50. Tiling contractors don't want to seal grout because in the three or four days time it takes them to paint three coats of sealer on all the grout lines, they can retile another bathroom. So, the way they seal grout for $25 is by spraying it on the tile with a spray bottle in one hand and immediately wiping it off the tiling with a towel in the other hand. The theory is that because the tile face sticks out proud of the grout lines, the sealer gets wiped off the tile faces, but not the grout lines. And, if you believe that, there's a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in buying from me at a very attractive price. If your contractor offers to seal the tile this way, save your money and do it yourself. Tiling sealed with a spray bottle and towel stands right next to unsealed ceramic tiling.