Tile and Grout Cleaning: the Blog: natural stone care

Friday, November 13, 2015

Professional Tile Cleaning in Greater Los Angeles: Know Your Tile

As your professional tile cleaning service in Los Angeles, we feel it is our duty to clear up a bunch of misunderstandings regarding your tile and your grout.

: Get Professional Tile Cleaning Manhattan Beach | (310) 545-8750

Tile Cleaning and Your Floors and Counters

Tiling is a popular way to decorate your home. For centuries tile adds elegance and functionality at the same time. Tile cleaning depends on a lot of things, such as the size of the tiles. Have you ever wondered why a lot of gyms use tiles that are only about an inch across in their locker rooms and shower areas? Well, not only is it easy to clean these tiles, it also reduces the chance that someone can slip on the area and injure themselves. The smaller the tile, the less the chances there are to slip. Does that mean you should only use small tiles in your home? Not necessarily. Sometimes, your decor won't go well with smaller tile sizes. So you want to use the tile that works best for the area in question. For example, if you have a bathroom, you probably want ceramic and not something like travertine.

After all, natural stone care is tough enough, but what about tile cleaning in the greater Los Angeles area? First off, it may surprise you that a lot of the care you give to stone can be adapted to tile. For example, on no tile or stone surfaces should you use harsh chemicals such as ammonia or bleach. Why? Well, look at something like fine porcelain tile. Too much bleach or ammonia and you can strip the glaze right off the tile, and even damage your grout as well.

What About Grout Cleaning

Ah yes, grout. The often overlooked stuff between the tiles. What a lot of people don't know however, is that a tiny portion of the grout is underneath the tile, and it serves as a cushion for the tile. This is important as it strengthens the tile. However, since grout is very porous, it can absorb stains and instead of being a nice, clean crisp white, it can be dingy and gray. That's why you want a professional grout cleaning service to come in and do both your tile as your grout.

A professional service may even recommend that you do grout sealing as well as grout cleaning. It makes sense, if you think about it. Stone sealing helps to protect the stone's pores from absorbing liquids, so the same would hold true for grout sealing. After all, a lot of grout is made up of sand, and who ever heard of non-absorbent sand?

So remember, know your tile, and know what it needs. Call a tile cleaning service in the greater Los Angeles area.

Morris Cleaning & Restoration
1007 N.Sepulveda Blvd. #1204
Manhattan Beach, CA 90267
(310) 545-8750
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Friday, September 18, 2015

Tile Cleaning in the Beach Cities

Tile cleaning is knowing what to do and what not to do.

: Get Professional Tile Cleaning Manhattan Beach | (310) 545-8750

Professional Tile Cleaning in the South Bay

Professional tile cleaning services know what to do as well as what not to do. For example, did you know that using harsh chemicals such as bleach and ammonia can not only damage your tile and your grout, it can damage them irreparably?

It's true. Ceramic tile can have the glaze stripped from it if there's too much bleach used when you're cleaning your tile floor. Bleach is essentially acid. If the protective glaze is stripped off your tile, then your floor is just one stain away from being ruined. There is also the problem of what bleach can do to some forms of grout. Grout is basically a mixture of either sand and/or resin. What some grout makers don't tell you though is that some grout is extremely susceptible to damage from harsh chemicals as well. Grout not only separates your tiles it is a protective layer under each tile. If the grout goes, your tile can start getting stress and strain on it until it finally cracks. Instead of finding ways of moving the furniture or planters to hide the stains, cracks, and other damage that could have been avoided, why don't you save yourself a lot of trouble and call a professional service to clean your tile. However, there's more.

Natural Stone Care and Why You Should Call a Professional Service

A lot of the more popular stones that are used in tiling appear hard enough on the surface. However, anything acidic on them can actually start dissolving the stone. So instead of having a clean tile floor, you can have a tile floor that looks like some sort of expensive cheese, namely with a bunch of holes and gaps. The same holds true for ammonia. In the unlikely event it doesn't damage the stone right off, it can start making your stone more and more brittle till it either cracks or crumbles. This holds true for marble, limestone, and travertine. If you think that only these stones are affected, think again.

For one thing, granite is a composite stone made of different types of stones fused together.

So whether you have a tile floor or a stone one, you want to take care of. Clean up any spills immediately, and call a tile cleaning service in the Beach Cities.