Removing Coatings From Ceramic Tiles

This is a great photograph of a Ceramic tiled kitchen floor in at a house in the village of Blaby, in the centre of Leicestershire, that had at some point in its past had been incorrectly sealed with an acrylic topical floor polish. Ceramic tiles are glazed and don’t need sealing, nor usually will they accept one as the glaze make it difficult for anything for adhere properly and so this treatment should never have been applied. Needless to say it didn’t work out as over time the coating had become worn, damaged and heavily soiled.

Cleaning Heavily Soiled Ceramic Kitchen Tiles

Before starting we made sure the floor was clear of any obstructions and we removed the kick boards around the bottom of the kitchen units to ensure they would not get scuffed or damp during the cleaning process.

To get the floor clean again the old polish that was now heavily soiled would have to be removed so a strong dilution of Tile Doctor Remove & Go was applied to the floor and left to soak into the floor in-order for it to get to work breaking down the polish. Remove and Go is a specialist product produced by Tile Doctor that is safe to use on Tile and Stone and pretty much does what it says on the tin for the removal of coatings such as sealers etc.

After leaving the solution to dwell for thirty minutes the Remove and Go was scrubbed into the floor using a black scrubbing pad fitted to low-speed weighted rotary machine. The grout lines were also scrubbed thoroughly by hand using a grout brush. The floor was then rinsed and the resulting slurry and cleaning residues removed using a wet vacuum. The floor was inspected at this point and any stubborn areas were spot treated using the same process.

The floor was now clean again and looking as it should, the only thing left to do was to dry the floor which we did with the aid of a force air drying machine and then refit the kickboards to the kitchen units.