Neutralising Potential Efflorescence Issues using Acid Gel in Chesham

This client from Chesham got in touch due to cracked and chipped Victorian tiles in their hallway. The Victorian floor tiles in both the hall and the outside porch were over 150 years old and many of them needed replacing and relaying, they also wanted the floor to be cleaned and sealed.

They were keen to spruce up the entrance area to the property and ensure it retained its original appearance in keeping with the age of the property. I visited site to check what needed to be done and gave them a quote for the work which they were happy to accept.

Repairing a Victorian Tiled Hallway and Porch Floor

Arriving on day one of a four-day job I marked out which tiles would need replacing as the client wanted to only do this kind of job once so any tiles with a chip or crack in had to be replaced. Fortunately, we were able to source a good range of reclamation and reproduction tiles so finding replacements to match is not too difficult. In total 90 tiles need replacing and work began by cutting out the grout lines around the broken tiles then drilling through the middle to stop any other tiles breaking around it and carefully removing them.

We were able to remove all the damaged tiles on day one so the morning of day two began with measuring, cutting, and placing in the replacement tiles to be fixed in later that day using a flexible Mapie adhesive. With the repairs out of the way and the replacements now firmly fixed in place we would be able to start the cleaning on day three.

Deep Cleaning a Victorian Tiled Hallway and Porch Floor

To deep clean the Victorian tiles a high alkaline cleaner called Tile Doctor Pro-Clean was sprayed onto the floor, left to soak in for ten minutes and then scrubbed in with a rotary floor buffer fitted with a Black pad. A wet vacuum was then used to hoover up the slurry.

Next step was to treat the tiles to an acid rinse to neutralise any latent alkaline salts in the floor that might lead to efflorescence later and further clean up the tiles by removing grout hazing. I used Tile Doctors Acid Gel for this and worked it in this time with a coarse 200-grit diamond pad. After another rinse and extraction using the wet vacuum.

To further improve the appearance of the tiles and blend the replacement tiles in with the original I continued the cleaning with finer grades of diamond burnishing pads until satisfied the floor was as good as it could be. Afterwards the floor was given a light mop with Tile Doctor Neutral Tile Cleaner to remove any dust etc and left it to dry off for a couple of hours. At the end of day 3 it was dry enough to accept a single base coat of Tile Doctors Colour Grow, this is a colour enhancing sealer that will help blend the new and old tiles and give a uniformed look.

Sealing a Victorian Tiled Hallway and Porch Floor

Day 4 the final day of the job I arrived and buffed over the floor with a White pad to get rid of any wet patches from putting the sealer down the day before. Then I applied two coats of using Tile Doctors X-Tra Seal onto the floor leaving a good hour in between each coat for the seal to soak into the pores of the tile and create a nice hard layer to protect them. Once both coats had dried, I went over the floor with a 3000-grit pad to give the floor a slight shine.

The client was very happy with the finished result and before leaving I took time to recommend the use of Tile Doctor Neutral Cleaner for on-going cleaning. It’s a neutral pH cleaner that’s ideal for the regular cleaning of sealed tiles, supermarket cleaning products are generally too strong for this job and will erode the sealer.

Source: Victorian Tile Cleaning and Floor Restoration Service in Chesham near Amersham