Oh No! My husband ruined our new grout with two sealers! help

Hi,
I am SOO angry right now. For the last 4 weeks Jason has been laying our tile floor, in a big 600 sf area. We grouted with a medium sandy brown color. Then I bought the 'best' sealer today....Aqua Mix, Ultra Seal Premium tile and grout sealer. I read the directions, went to work while hubbie went to seal the grout. I told him to follow the directions...

Instead of following the directions and just using the very expensive sealer, hubby put on one coat with a thin applicator THEN (oh the horror) POURED all over our porcelin tile AND grout, this sealer he found in the garage that was older....Tile Lab Grout and Tile Sealer, yellow bottle. He thought two coats would be better than one..even if different brands, years made.

I get home from work thinking I will see perfectly sealed grout..Nope...some parts are darker in color, some lines look whitish...not uniform at all and SO obvious to me even when standing looking down. It looks like crap. Better before he sealed it.

I went to mop the grout lines and I could see that the water was darker in color in some spots, lighter, like not being soaked in, in some spots.

What should we do? Can we regrout and reseal or is it too late? Should I get a sealer color enhancer and go over it or grout colorant and do the entire floor?

Is this because he used one brand of penetrating sealer and then another..and I am assuming it was not dry?

Courtney

 

I would just get a scrub brush and a pail of water with detergent. Scrub the grout lines, wipe-up with fresh water, and wait for it to dry.
If that doesn't do the trick, then consider the colorant approach to effectively stain the grout to an even shade. After that, be sure to re-seal the grout.

 

Life's way too short to get upset about a DIY project that doesn't go exactly the way you wanted. Stuff happens.

BTW - I've used the Tile Lab sealer without having the problems you describe.

 

GOOD LORD!!!!!

I thought the sky was falling!

No real harm done. Rent a floor scrubber, buy a white pad for it, mix up some TSP in warm water and scrub the hell out of the floor. There is going to be plenty of sealer all over the tile and you probably haven't detected that as yet.

After you scrub the floor a few times, mop it repeatedly with clean water. Let it dry a few days and see what you have then. If that hasn't corrected the problem come back and it can be further addressed.

In the meantime... "JASON" don't be mixin' chemicals man. Those two sealers aren't the same thing. They are both good products but have different approaches to sealing.

 

From personal experience, I can tell you that your attitude will virtually guarantee your husband will not make another mistake. That's because he won't DO any DIY work.

 

Ok Ok, maybe I did over react.
I was writing to the forum as I was seeing the problem. You see, we had old tile in part of the area we just did..and we pulled it out..because the grout was discustingly dirty and 'peachy' colored and it was gross with two dogs. We also pulled out carpet to put the tile. We both have been working on this major project for weeks and weeks (even though I said I would pay to get it done) to get perfect new flooring with awesome grout that wasn't nasty like the old. So when we do all of this to fix the problem and get grout that looks like the old grout, I got upset.

Sorry.I was venting...my husband loves DIY projects and I am very proud at his perfect diagonal lay and perfect cuts.. but is known to skip steps, not read directions, to hurry and get the DIY project done. Anyways,

I will look into the floor scrubber and TSP. Our grout lines do go a little down and are not flush with the floor, so hopefully it can get the crevices. I know bleach would lighten the color and it is medium brown/earth.

The grout did turn out ligher than we had thought. Anyone use a colorant on a larger area like this?

Thanks for listening to my ranting.

 

WOW!!! Now you want to put bleach on your new tile and grout??? I'm beginning to think that maybe Jason isn't the problem afterall.

For God's sake don't use any bleach right now and don't think you can use any acid either.

GENERALLY SPEAKING:
Once the grout is installed and dried a sealer is sometimes applied TO THE GROUT ONLY. Once that has dried, clear water is all it should take to clean the tile and grout on a regular basis for a long long time. I don't see any reason to make more of this than is necessary.

 

A member a few posts back told her to use bleach. I will delete his suggestion since it's ill adviced.

 

NOTHING should be required to clean new grout for a long time. Some of the tile and grout cleaners contain bleach and acids also. They too shouldn't be necessary for a while. Most of those products are much to strong and can in fact do some damage.

The secret to cleaning grout is the frequency of the maintenance schedule not the harshness of the cleaning agent.

 

I recommend trying the cleaning techniques, but on a small scale first to see if they work for you....and Jason. Try the several methods.

If that doesn't work well, AquaMix makes a sealer remover just for cases like this. http://www.aquamix.com/products/pg_d...2462&pgid=9833

In the end if you want to use a grout colorant, any sealer needs to be removed.

Jaz

 

It is my belief that the light and dark areas are more from inconsistent mixing of the pigment in the grout itself and not from anything done in the sealing process. The pigments may have settled to the bottom of the bag of grout during shipping/handling and storage, resulting in the light and darker areas on the finished product.

Sealer is clear and not designed to add any color to the finished product. Its kind of like "scotch guarding" a piece of fabric. It makes it stain resistant. Premium sealers need to be reapplied less frequently than cheaper ones.

They make pigmented grout sealer that matches the color of the grout you installed. Contact the manufacturer of the grout and they should be able to get some to you. Apply it as you would normal sealer. It basically "paints" the grout to the consistent color you originally desired.

You may have to "unseal" the grout before the colored sealant is applied (check with Manufacturer). Products are available to do this as well.

I'd give Jason a pass on this one, its not worth breaking up a happy home over. Half the fun of being a DYI'er is overcoming these types of setbacks and learning from your mistakes. In the case of this forum, it gives others the opportunity to learn from your experiences .

 

This could very well be the case. I grouted one of our bathrooms with mapei bone colored grout. I ended up mixing 2 batches and they were different colors. The first batch dried a lighter shade than the second batch. So the bathroom looked sorta funny for a while. I ended up using a stone enhancing sealer on the lighter grout and it darkened it a shade or two. It's a lot less noticeable now, but I've learned to live with it

 

not sure about the fix, but i'm sure someone will. i DO KNOW that MURDER/MEYHEM is still illegal!! you do know that withe men reading the directions is a LAST RESORT??????