We had a great result on this Victorian tiled floor at a house in Musselburgh which is five miles east of Edinburgh and apparently one of the oldest towns in Scotland. If you take a close look at the photograph below you can see how dirty the tiles were before we got started.
Cleaning Victorian Tile and Grout
We were quite lucky with the floor in that it was in good physical shape and really just need a deep clean and re-seal. So the first step was to strip of any old remaining sealer or other coatings from the tiles using a strong solution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean which is safe to use on these old tiles. The solution was mopped onto the tile and grout and then scrubbed in using a rotary bonnet machines fitted with a black scrubbing pad. The soiled cleaning solution was then rinsed off using water and then the whole process repeated; three times in fact before being satisfied that the floor was clean. The floor was given a final rinse using Neutral Tile cleaner and then water extracted using a wet vacuum before being left to dry overnight.
Sealing Victorian Tiles
We came back the next day and checked a few areas to make sure the floor was dry before sealing. The tiles were dry so the sealing process was started using Tile Doctor Seal and Go which is an ideal sealer for Victorian Tiles as it affords good stain protection whilst adding a nice subtle sheen to the floor, five coats were required before the tiles had become fully sealed.
Deep stains can be difficult to remove so to make Pro-Clean more powerful consider mixing it 50/50 with NanoTech HBU Remover which uses tiny abrasive particles to help dislodge ingrained dirt.