Heavily Stained Victorian Porch Tiles Deep Cleaned in Clifton Bristol

This customer from the Clifton area of Bristol contacted Tile Doctor about a small Victorian Tiled Porch at the entrance to their property that needed renovating. Happy to assist I went over to take a look and survey the tiles.

You can see from the photos the tiles were in quite a state and would need a deep clean to pull out all the dirt that had become ingrained in the pores of the tile. I was happy to deep clean the tiles to restore the appearance but there were two cracked tiles in the middle that needed replacing. I don’t cover tiling work at the moment so I asked the customer to arrange for those two tiles to be replaced and then I would return to do the deep clean.

Happy with the plan we agreed a price for the cleaning and waited for them to let me know when the tiling work had been completed.

Deep Cleaning Victorian Porch Tiles

I deep cleaned the tiles with Tile Doctor Oxy-Gel scrubbed in with a 200-Grit diamond milling pad. The Oxy-Gel is great for breaking down the dirt in small areas as being a gel its very easy to control and the industrial diamonds in the pads get right into the dirt. A little water is used with the Oxy-Gel to help lubricate the process and this soon begins to turn black as the dirt becomes released from the tiles. This soiling was then extracted from the floor using a wet vacuum.

I then switched over to a black pad and applied another Tile Doctor product called Acid Gel. This further cleans the floor and being acidic will remove old grout smears and other mineral deposits, it also neutralises the pH level of the floor from the use of Oxy-Gel which is a strong alkaline. Lastly being acidic it microscopically etches the clay tiles allowing for a stronger bond for the sealer. Once done the floor was rinsed with water and wet vacuumed again. This time I just used a deck brush for the final clean down.

The clean-up didn’t take long, just a few hours but it certainly improved the appearance of the tiles.

Sealing a Victorian Tiled Vestibule

To save money my customer said they would seal the floor themselves so before leaving I discussed the process with them and recommended, they leave it to dry off overnight before applying the sealer. I left them a couple of sealing cloths and a partly used tin of Tile Doctor Colour Grow for this. I recommended applying the sealer with a brush and then polishing off any excess with the cloths within five minutes of it being applied. Colour Grow contains a colour enhancing formula and is also fully breathable so ideal for exposed porches like this one.

For aftercare cleaning I recommended Tile Doctor Neutral Tile Cleaner which as its name suggests is a pH neutral tile cleaner. It’s important to use a pH neutral product like this as many of the products you find in supermarkets are simply too strong and can strip off a sealer with repeated use.

Source: Victorian Porch Tile Cleaning and Renovation Service in Clifton Bristol