Need advice on ceramic tile

[curt johnson]

Customer has new ceramic tile floor, the kind that looks like wood. Brown tile and brown grout. Contractors did a ton of work after floor was installed. Now the grout looks white or lighter colored in a lot of areas. I was assuming construction dust and stuff.

Cleaned with alkaline cleaner like I would any tile floor. When wet floor looked great, but when it dried a lot of the white haze came back. Then cleaned with acid, and although a little better there is still a ton of the lighter looking grout.

Any idea on next steps????

 

[SamIam]

No pics? Sure it's not paint?

 

[SamIam]

What Chems did you use?

 

[Mikey P]

I'm going to guess sealer residue. Can you find out what product was used and re emulsify?

Are you scrubbing with a Malgrit Brush or black pad when you clean?

those are Porcelain if you want to be technically correct.


See if straight ammonia will take the white away..

 

[Mikey P]

and bring photos to us next time, ya Kirk...

 

[curt johnson]

No photos this time. I've never made a mistake or had issues so never needed to take them before.......

Anyway, it's not paint. After floor installed they did a bunch of drywall work, that's when the haze appeared according to customer. As for chems I used Power Force which is a local one, similar to Cobb's Powermax. The acid was Modern Stone Easy Etch. I did not scrub with malgrit brush or black pad, I guess I should've.

 

[Mikey P]

could be epoxy grout or a cement grout with a hell of an additive

how thick is the grout line?

 

[curt johnson]

Very thin grout line. Other rooms the grout is dark brown. This is the tile made to look like a wood floor.

 

[Mikey P]

Try an epoxy remover on just the tile, in one small area

 

[Old Coastie]

Curt, did you clean with steam, pressure, or brush? Is the hazing widespread or localized (as in a spill)? Was the grout colorized after application?
Now for the weird question: Have you looked at the haze under magnification? I'm thinking a field microscope like this:

http://www.carolina.com/field-micro...id=bCErWByVsEsWiknTLPajJq+7.worker5?question=

It would reveal particulate, or film degradation (as Mike thinks).

 

[curt johnson]

I cleaned with my Turbo and about 900 psi of pressure. Agitated some areas with grout brush. It doesn't look like a spill. It is in an area where they did a lot of drywall work. According to homeowner a lot of dust was created.

Some of the grout lines are just light in color, like they have drywall dust on them. The rest of the floor has dark brown grout. This issue is right in the family room where the new wall was constructed.

 

[Wandslinger]

Ill take a wild guess of Efflorescence. Sometimes you get that on a dark grout when you saturate it with water. It will eventually disappear. Since its just in the kitchen, you might want to try and enhance a few lines and see how that looks.