How to Quickly Clean Tiles: Tips You Didn't Know About

The time-consuming process of washing ceramic tiles can be simplified and shortened by following our tips and life hacks. Did you know about them?

What inventory will you need?

• A soft but flexible brush to clean dried dirt. Too stiff bristles will damage the tile surface.
• A used toothbrush. Useful for cleaning grout lines.

• A sponge. To apply cleaning solutions to tiles and remove dirt.
• A microfiber cloth. It's convenient for wiping up excess water after cleaning and polishing glossy tiles.

Life Hack

To speed up the process, consider buying advanced cleaning tools — a steam cleaner and an electric brush. Window cleaners with vacuum pumps can also be attached to any smooth surface, including tiles. These gadgets are convenient for use on large tiled areas.

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What to Clean? Grease and Micro-Food Particles

Light dirt can be removed with dish soap or a baking soda solution: add four tablespoons to a liter of water, apply it to the tiles and leave for several minutes. Clean, then rinse with water. More stubborn dirt can be removed with a kitchen tile cleaning product.

Life Hack

Before starting to wash the tiles, try steaming them: fill a bathtub, shower or kitchen sink with hot water or pass a hot hair dryer over the surface. The pores of the tiles will open up, and it will be easier to remove dirt.

Calcium and Soap Scum in the Bathroom

The best way to deal with bathroom dirt is with bathroom cleaning products. However, tiles can be damaged by acids in their formula. Additionally, the bathroom is a humid room with poor air circulation, and it's easy to inhale fumes from cleaning products during the cleaning process. Therefore, caustic acid-based cleaners should not be used here, and milder options based on citric, lactic, and other organic acids should be preferred.

Life Hack

Products containing strong acids emit a sharp chemical smell from the bottle. These products should only be used with gloves and with open windows in the room.

Pay attention to the presence of aggressive cleaning components. The most harmful are anionic surfactants (AOS). Regularly using cleaning products with high AOS content is unsafe: they accumulate in the body and can cause disruptions in virtually all vital systems. This may manifest as dry skin, dermatitis, and allergies.

Safe AOS content in a cleaning product is up to 5%, as in the universal cleaning milk Meine liebe. This is a concentrated cleaning product for daily cleaning of any surfaces in the kitchen and bathroom. Its gentle formula based on natural chalk effectively cleans but does not damage the surface. It quickly removes calcium deposits and soap scum, decontaminates tiles and grout lines, cleans ceramic, enameled and stainless steel fixtures and taps, glass panels, and electric or glass-ceramic cooktops.

Thanks to its eco-friendly formula, the product is safe for use in homes with autonomous sewage systems — septic tanks.

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Streaks on Glossy Tiles

They appear if the tiles are not dried thoroughly after cleaning. A microfiber cloth can help polish them. It's important to thoroughly wipe glossy tiles after every shower or bath, rinsing them with water first.

You can use glass cleaner or try polishing the tiles with ammonia spirit (2–3 tablespoons per liter of water). However, it's better to reserve these methods for emergency situations and avoid using spirit-based products: their vapors are unsafe for health.

Life Hack

When washing wall tiles, start from bottom to top and finish from top to bottom. This will help clean them quickly without extra movements.

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Darkened Grout Lines

Chlorine-based products can decontaminate and lighten darkened grout lines. However, chlorine is very harmful to the body and can also damage the tiles themselves. This despite the fact that it goes through several stages of firing at very high temperatures during production.

Design: Anna Akopyan

Plus, these products only help with whitened grout. If the grout is colored, after such disinfection, the pigments will lighten and the color will become uneven. This can be fixed with special acrylic grout paint, but applying it precisely requires some effort.

More gentle methods to fight discoloration and mold on grout lines include steam cleaning, using weak acid-based products, or pencil-shaped cleaning products.

LIFE HACK

Grout lines often become moldy, darkened, and uneven in color if they were saved by using cement-based grout instead of proper materials.

To avoid spending time and effort maintaining grout lines in clean condition, choose epoxy two-component grout. It costs more but is almost impermeable to moisture, unlike cement-based grout, on which bacteria and fungi reproduce poorly, and it doesn't change color and is nearly indestructible.

Design: Julia Kaufelt

6 Tips for Clean Tiles and Grout Lines

Avoid black glossy tiles.

Or use them only in very small areas. This is the most noticeable option among all available.

Avoid overly rough tiles.

With such tiles, it's almost impossible to slip, but they're also almost impossible to clean: the cloth catches on the rough surface and leaves fibers behind, and fine dirt gets embedded firmly.

Wipe down the kitchen backsplash and floor tiles after cooking at the end of the day.

This daily ritual will take very little time, and you won't have to spend long periods removing embedded dirt.

After laying tiles, treat the grout with sealant.

This will extend the life of the grout, especially if it's cement-based.

Keep tiled surfaces dry.

A reliable preventive measure for mold and mildew is good ventilation in the bathroom and toilets, always slightly open doors in humid rooms.

Don't use soap solution.

Soap creates a microfilm on the surface of tiles and grout lines, which is an excellent breeding ground for mold and mildew.

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