Regular maintenance of Terracotta tiles

Some great photo’s below of Terracotta tiled floor in the kitchen of a house in Burbage which as you can see was overdue for a deep clean and seal.

Terracotta Tile Cleaning

The first job was to get the floor clean so it was covered in a strong dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean which was left it to dwell and soak into the surface for about twenty minutes, this helps to soften and beak down any existing sealer and ingrained dirt and grime. The grout lines were then scrubbed clean with a stiff grout brush which was run along the grout lines before running a rotary floor machine fitted with a black scrubbing pad over the tiles several times to get them clean. Once satisfied with the condition of the floor the remaining soiled cleaning solution was removed using a wet vacuum and the floor rinsed several times with clean water with the aid of a deck brush due to ensure we had flushed out all the dirt from the Terracotta tiles which are quite porous. Once we 100% satisfied that all traces of cleaning product had been removed the floor was left to dry for seven due so we could be sure the Terracotta would be dry on our return.

Terracotta Tile Sealing

Upon our return we tested that the floor was dry enough to seal; Terracotta is very porous so it can take a while. Seven days had proved to be plenty of time and the test came back as fine so we sealed the floor first using a single coat of Tile Doctor Colour Grow which is an impregnating sealer that occupies the pores in the stone and also enhances natural colouring and the secondly with five coats of Tile Doctor Seal and Go which adds a nice subtle sheen to the floor.”