Thoughts opinions and solutions for this failing shower tile grouting?

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timmmay

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#1145319 2-Oct-2014 08:56

I like them in the shower. I don't clean them, my wife does, she likes cleaning and won't let me - or maybe I just did it wrong once ;) She just wipes them with a cloth occasionally, definitely not every day.

In the rest of the bathroom I'm not convinced. When the under floor heating is off they're cold, so you have to pay to heat them the whole time you want to be in there with bare feet. It's not too expensive, but it's power you use. Plastic type tiles with lower thermal conductivity wouldn't need to be heated, and I might go that way next time. Tiles were expensive, along with installation and the heating, but they do look nice.

Keeping the glass clean is more difficult, water spots are hard to remove. Even with a "diamond coating" on the shower (which may be completely ineffective, unsure) we have to use abrasive cleaners to clean the glass.

Jaxson

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#1145488 2-Oct-2014 11:47

If you have hard water then you will have issues on the glass, it's a given long term. Hardness in water is a sliding scale, from nothing at all up to huge problems. Most water, especially if ground sauced, has some hardness in it.

On tiles on floors, I tend to agree. We went with plastic floor boards which ended up looking much better than that sounds. It stays relatively warm and if you spec an industrial strength product won't wear particularly badly either.

In kitchens, it also means the odd plate might bounce rather than a guaranteed smash.

Niel

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#1145865 2-Oct-2014 18:33

For the shower glass, try car windscreen "scrub". I've bought some reasonably cheap from K-Mart and it works well for me, but misplaced the bottle...

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gcorgnet

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#1146295 3-Oct-2014 09:16

timmmay:
Keeping the glass clean is more difficult, water spots are hard to remove. Even with a "diamond coating" on the shower (which may be completely ineffective, unsure) we have to use abrasive cleaners to clean the glass.

We wipe the glass after every use with one of these rubber squigee thingy. Once you've done it for a while, it just becomes second nature.

It's no silver bullet but helps the glass stay cleaner for longer. Still needs to be cleaned every once in a while, though

timmmay

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#1146299 3-Oct-2014 09:24

gcorgnet: We wipe the glass after every use with one of these rubber squigee thingy. Once you've done it for a while, it just becomes second nature.

It's no silver bullet but helps the glass stay cleaner for longer. Still needs to be cleaned every once in a while, though

Yeah, my Dad does that, but it's annoying. We just give it a good clean every week or two, it's not as good but it's ok. Plus our shower doors are curved which takes more time.

hsvhel

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#1146302 3-Oct-2014 09:24

timmmay: They're arranging to fix it now. Instead of the tiler who did it they have some kind of industry rep expert type guy doing it who should do a good job. They'll remove the grout (or at least the top layer) and replace it with a hybrid grout, or ceramic grout, or something different anyway.

"Something different" will likely turn out to be the correct mix that should have been used in the first place for the shower environment. That degradation shouldn't happen unless you clean with hydroxyl and a dremmel.

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Niel

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#1146879 3-Oct-2014 18:46

You get an epoxy tile cement, probably also get an epoxy grout. Harder to use as everything must be cut before you start tiling, then put it all up in something like 20-30 minutes, but (supposedly) lasts forever.

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