Ceramic tile problem.....most likely wax problem.

[TimP]

Ok so I was doing my tile job for this week. Everything went well cleaned 4 bathrooms and two halls. Then I go to do the entry way and foyer for the building.

I cleaned with my alkaline product and then went to etch with acid cause the tile was filthy. Anyway I got spotty reaction with the acid. And it wont come clean. Anyway I'm pretty sure the floor had been waxed before. So to get to the Krux of my question.


I'm planning on buying some floor stripper on friday at home-depot or lowes. :?: What's the best stuff to get for this problem locally :?: I'm going back saturday to try to get the rest of it clean then seal it all in addition to the new tile that was put in.

 

[TimP]

I don't buy oxy blaster.


I do know one thing, I tried twice with alkaline and it didn't do anything the second time. Plenty of dwell and lots of scrubbing. Acid didn't cause bubbling meaning something is blocking the grout, and it's not a greasy place it's in a freaking library. All that comes in is dirt and detergent has made adobe bricks in most and that's not a problem. It's splotchy like it's been waxed and stripped and not all the wax came off. You can scratch through the grout and get clean grout. It's not stained with grease or dye. It's little black spots all over it and the grout looks filthy because of it. Looks just like what wax does to grout after it has been stripped with a buffer most likely, to me. If the stripper don't get it then it will need to be regrouted.

 

[RickL]

Tim I would use Bare Bones or Jonson Fastrlp however of that didn't get it I would and have gone to a stronger acid. I have a few commercial accts that put VCT wax on everything. This is common in instituions like colleges and hospitols,etc

 

[floorguy]

stripper from home depot or lowes???? :x :x :x :? :?

hit up the local jan san supply and get good stuff

 

[TimP]

Are there any Janitorial supply franchises or chains or whatever that are reputable and what would I want to buy from one of them as far as brand or type of stripper.

 

[Jim Martin]

you can get this stuff at lowes.........try it...It may even surprise you at how many less steps you need to do and save you money in chemical cost

 

[floorguy]

Jim, anything that has a "step" number on it...is well HACKISH :roll: :roll:

stuff from johnsons, is ok...barebones i think it is.. Betco, ecolab, Butchers... they should have all the basics....plus sometimes they may have a private label, that usually works..

As with alot of things its trial and error, and personal preference.. play to pay around $15 a gallon maybe higher..

 

[Jim Martin]

Call it as you will ....but this stuff it the best cleaner I have found......very concentrated and removes everything...As a stripper....I would have returned it ...

I mix 6 oz to every 2 gallons of water...If it is really bad I mix 10 oz per 2 gallons...
Pour on push around with a push broom and the clean/extract....No dwell...is does not hurt paint..or cabinet toe kicks.....25 gallons is about $30...you cant go wrong with this stuff...

 

[floorguy]

ok well as a T&G cleaner i may have to try it

 

[fhueston]

if none of those stripper work it may be a urethane finish. If this is the case than none of those stippers will work. You will need a solvent like Jasco or similar.

 

[TimP]

Well all I could find was the stuff Jim showed, and had to buy a bucket of it. It says dilute 1-1 for heavy stripping. I'll see if it works. I doubt it's a poly thing, some fly by night cleaned it is what I'm thinking and probably put on a mop-n glow or something stupid like that. I'll see in the morning I suppose.

 

[TimP]

Ok well the Lowes stripper sucks for wax in grout. Anyways I mixed it 1-1 and it got more off than my regular cleaner. I scraped the lines to test and it was a gummy substance so it was wax. I got probably 80-90 % of it up and it took for ever. Next time I want to have a good stripper at the shop for problems like this. So what kind is best and where do you get it?


They were happy with the result and the effort. We sealed it all and we will get paid early next week. I've had a great week thanks to this job. Almost 3/4 a normal month for me in one week with a few jobs that were scheduled this week.

 

[Jim Martin]

how are you cleaning your tile


temps
pressure
tools
what type of tile was it


you mixed that stuff way heaver then I ever have and it has cut threw everything for me...

 

[TimP]

how are you cleaning your tile


temps
pressure
tools

you mixed that stuff way heaver then I ever have and it has cut threw everything for me...

The cleaning wasn't a problem Jim. The WAX was. The cleaner cuts through dirt just fine wax it did not. Tile was clean the grout had gummy black stuff in it.

I clean as hot as my CDS Salsa will get 170-200 depending on how hot the blower gets and how much pressure I run.
Pressure 700-1000. I was at 900 on this job.
I use a turbo hybrid. And a stand up blue grout brush.

I wasn't putting your juice down Jim, it works great the way I diluted it for regular soil. I just don't think it's a good wax stripper at least with it comes to grout.

 

[Jim Martin]

how are you cleaning your tile


temps
pressure
tools

you mixed that stuff way heaver then I ever have and it has cut threw everything for me...

The cleaning wasn't a problem Jim. The WAX was. The cleaner cuts through dirt just fine wax it did not. Tile was clean the grout had gummy black stuff in it.

I clean as hot as my CDS Salsa will get 170-200 depending on how hot the blower gets and how much pressure I run.
Pressure 700-1000. I was at 900 on this job.
I use a turbo hybrid. And a stand up blue grout brush.

I wasn't putting your juice down Jim, it works great the way I diluted it for regular soil. I just don't think it's a good wax stripper at least with it comes to grout.

Relax.
I did not think you were If you mixed it that heavy and was still having problems something else was wrong.... I was try to figure out why you were having problems.....and what could of been done to get this crap off...in case someone ever runs across it again..seems your pressures and temps were ok...

 

[TimP]

The grout was completely black when I started. What remained passed for what looks like thinset showing from a shitty tile grouting job.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist and it didn't pass for me. But I wasn't about to start grinding out grout lines.

I used the stripper that strong and then went back over with acid again to get the results I did. But I want to get a real good VCT stripper for next time.

I'm sure this stripper is fine for cleaning tile if you don't mind the smell of ammonia, definitely better than viper venom if you can clean at the dilutions you say Jim. I thought it was going to be 62 bucks a pail as marked. But got to the counter and it was only 29 bucks. I used half of it already on this job though. Cause I soaked the hell out of it hopeing that it would disolve it and give me more dwell time to scrubb and get up the gunk.

 

[dealtimeman]

I think next time if you have this problem you need to agitate with an buffer or cimex then extract. With all finishes it is just not going to emulsify all the finish without a bit of agitation with a brush or pad. It would have been best to apply the stripper as you did let set for about ten minutes then agitating the whole area just quickly then coming through and hitting as you did with the turbo hybrid.

 

[TimP]

A buffer is a waste of time to get stuff out of grout on ceramic tile. It only scrubs the tile surface and with the floor stripper unless there is actually wax on the tile which there was not cause that's what the previous cleaner did was remove the wax from the tile and couldn't get it out of the lines due to not using a floor brush.

 

[Fon Johnson]

You always need to be absolutely sure you are removing sealer and not etching the tile. Sometimes they can look the same. It does appear that you are removing sealer here though. With that said..

The reason most strippers work well as a cleaner is because most strippers work utilizing butyl, solvents, or both. Both make excellent cleaners and degreasers in most cases. If you have sealer/floor finish on ceramic (especially if it was applied by a janitorial company) there is a good chance that it is SC Johnson's Plaza. Plaza is a BEAR to remove. Most any sealer that will work well for ceramic will be tough. You need a really good stripper such as Johnson's Pro Strip or Fastrip, Pioneer's Formula X, Or Spartan's Eundura Strip. The majority of "off the shelf" strippers from hardware or discount stores just won't cut it. It would also help to use a 175. Stripping pads WILL get into the grout, but not all pads will get too deep. High Pro pads will get it pretty good unless it is a really deep grout. A good stripping brush is going to be the best option. A brush will get into the grout and loosen the sealer. There are also special pads designed for grouted tile that will get down into the grout. They are very textured and get deep into the grout as well as scrubbing the tile.

As for using the truckmount, I would use caution. You can say what you want about cleaning up your stuff after sucking up stripper, but after 19 years of this, I have replaced a lot of vac motors in equipment that was designed for this purpose. I would at least use a shop vac to suck up the bulk of it. I would prefer to even rinse mop it prior to using the truckmount. With the tolerances of blowers, it would only take a little bit to really mess one up.

It is nearly impossible to remove ALL sealer from grout, but you can get it in pretty good shape if it is not real bad.

 

[David Gelinas]

A couple of things:

First and fore most – Fred, it’s great to have you here. This is the first time I noticed one of your posts. Thanks for commenting on it.

TimP

You’ll be well served to carefully re-read Fon’s post, he’s dead on. Yes in fact using a swing machine will help you out on jobs like this; a weighted one will even improve you results. Using a planetary head machine, like a Cimex, will be even better yet because the action of the heads will force the bristles down into the grout lines. Also, no discredit to Jim but you’ll be much better served using one of the strippers Fon mentioned or the ones Rick Lord mentioned. Out of the bunch my preference would be NCL’s Bare Bones; both from a price point, availability and also it works at least as well at stripping as those other products do.
From what you’ve described it does sound more like a water based VCT type sealer/finish rather than a high build solvent based coating like a urethane. If it had been a high build product you would have had to use a “paint type stripper” and there are a whole host of things that you would have had to deal with. If you’re not familiar with them you may want to stay away from using something like that. If you do chose to, you may want to consider ALDONS stripper (sorry can’t remember the name right now), Dumond’s Peal-A-Way 5 or possibly BIX from HD. (USE THEM ALL WITH A GREAT DEAL OF CAUTION)
Two things to keep in mind when stripping T&G:
1) Never under estimate how difficult Mop n Glo is to get off of a floor, its one of the most difficult coatings you will ever try to remove. Vince over at ROVAL also makes one that’s rather difficult.
2) Rarely will a customer pay for it but you may have to resort to using a narrow flat head screw driver to carefully dig out the emulsified finish from the grout lines. Then you will probably need to re-strip to get the residual.

Hope this helps some.

David Gelinas

 

[boazcan]

A couple of things:

First and fore most – Fred, it’s great to have you here. This is the first time I noticed one of your posts. Thanks for commenting on it.

TimP

You’ll be well served to carefully re-read Fon’s post, he’s dead on. Yes in fact using a swing machine will help you out on jobs like this; a weighted one will even improve you results. Using a planetary head machine, like a Cimex, will be even better yet because the action of the heads will force the bristles down into the grout lines. Also, no discredit to Jim but you’ll be much better served using one of the strippers Fon mentioned or the ones Rick Lord mentioned. Out of the bunch my preference would be NCL’s Bare Bones; both from a price point, availability and also it works at least as well at stripping as those other products do.
From what you’ve described it does sound more like a water based VCT type sealer/finish rather than a high build solvent based coating like a urethane. If it had been a high build product you would have had to use a “paint type stripper” and there are a whole host of things that you would have had to deal with. If you’re not familiar with them you may want to stay away from using something like that. If you do chose to, you may want to consider ALDONS stripper (sorry can’t remember the name right now), Dumond’s Peal-A-Way 5 or possibly BIX from HD. (USE THEM ALL WITH A GREAT DEAL OF CAUTION)
Two things to keep in mind when stripping T&G:
1) Never under estimate how difficult Mop n Glo is to get off of a floor, its one of the most difficult coatings you will ever try to remove. Vince over at ROVAL also makes one that’s rather difficult.
2) Rarely will a customer pay for it but you may have to resort to using a narrow flat head screw driver to carefully dig out the emulsified finish from the grout lines. Then you will probably need to re-strip to get the residual.

Hope this helps some.

David Gelinas

Hey Dave,

Which brushes do you use on the cimex? I just bought and used the stiff (clear) brushes for a big tile job last night. I was very disappointed. They didn't feel stiff enough, but I gave it a try. I used my icapsol right next to it and it was digging the dirt out while the mex was just brushing the tiles. Do the yellow ones work any better with weight? I need to find a setup for that 10k+ condo job if I get it. I will probably kill that icapsol on a job like that. Although nothing I have tried out scrubs it on tile and grout.

Tim - I have used barebones to do what you describe. Dwell, dwell, dwell. I have let it dwell 45+ mins keeping it wet the entire time to have any effect. I was peeling off more of an acrylic than a wax.

 

[TimP]

For what I had in the job they were happy with it.

I do own a cimex but no brushes. I can understand how a soft brush could do it but a stronger stripper is what I needed and I didn't have time to get it.

I really don't know a good place to buy it. I guess I need to look into it more. But the main thing about the question is what stripper to get and where to get it.

 

[floorguy]

Which brushes do you use on the cimex? I just bought and used the stiff (clear) brushes for a big tile job last night. I was very disappointed. They didn't feel stiff enough, but I gave it a try. I used my icapsol right next to it and it was digging the dirt out while the mex was just brushing the tiles. Do the yellow ones work any better with weight? I need to find a setup for that 10k+ condo job if I get it. I will probably kill that icapsol on a job like that. Although nothing I have tried out scrubs it on tile and grout.

Tim - I have used barebones to do what you describe. Dwell, dwell, dwell. I have let it dwell 45+ mins keeping it wet the entire time to have any effect. I was peeling off more of an acrylic than a wax.

um acrylic is what most waxes...(its really FLOOR FINISH) is made up of....which means you probably were pulling something else...

 

[David Gelinas]

Bryan

These are the brushes that I use w/ one weight - as can be found on StoneCareDirect.com

Item Name: 8" White Nylon
Item Number: SCD-4805
Price: $190 (3 brushes)

David Gelinas
Marbleguy