Highly fashionable, bespoke and unique cement encaustic tiles come at a price! They are super sensitive to many chemicals and products found with in the home. Even hard water can discolor them!
Luckily we are amongst the very few in West London who understand these tiles and can restore them to something that looks good again. We cover Ealing, Chiswick and surrounding areas.
Our cement tile deep cleaning service
Cement encaustic tiles get dirty and discolored very quickly as they are extremely porous. In most cases we find they have been inadequately sealed or maintained and the dirt has penetrated deep within the tile carrying harmful liquids or chemicals that may have bleached the colors or etched into the structure of the tile. There are allot of blemishes we find caused by many different things, particularly in wet room shower areas and bathroom floors in general.
Here in the pic above you can see dark colored hexagon cement tiles that have completely discolored. They where on a bathroom floor and the cleaner had been using bleach along with acidic detergents. Some of the marks are from shampoos , soaps and possibly even water itself.
We will typically deep steam clean and alkaline strip the tiles to remove old sealer and grime that will be sitting deep inside them. This will however only clean the tiles but will not have any effect on the bleach marks and discolouration. To restore these tiles we need to resurface, recolour and disguise the effected bits. Its a timely process and everything needs to be sealed more than stone is usually sealed when the restorative work is complete. The sealing will preserve the restoration work and will protect the tiles from harmfull chemicals going forward.
Sealing can only be done once properly dry ( usually the next day).
What to AVOID and to DO when having cement encaustic tiles installed?
Having seen many of these cement tiles go pear shaped as a tile restoration specialist I can give some advice to help you before you have them installed.
- Avoid outdoors completely. Dont even think about having them on a balcony or a pathway because they will be faded rubbish within two years. The elements will bleach and fade all the colors in the tiles and they will just look like mildly patterned cement squares.
- Avoid wet rooms, shower rooms, bathroom floors that will have allot of water and soaps etc on them. Kitchen areas that will have products spilled on them , such as the part in front of the cooker.
- Avoid anything acidic. This includes vinegar , citrus products, Viakal, grout removing tile cleaners, limescale removers etc. All these things bleach and etch straight into the tiles leaving unsightly marks.
- DO have them sealed very well before installation. Around 4 times, sides of tiles as well. Lithofin, Fila, are good brands of tile sealer that you may want to insist the tiler uses.
- DO maintain them regularly by cleaning them with PH neutral detergent and sealing them yourself every few months.
- DO wipe off liquid and water so that the tiles are left dry. Anything left may make its way through the sealer and effect the tiles.
We cover Most of West and North West London so please get in touch if you need us to help with your cement tiles [email protected]
Cement tile cleaning Acton, Chiswick,Ealing, Wembley, Twickenham, Hayes, Harrow