Tile Floors Cleaning
Tile floor cleaning can be quite a nightmare if you have sparkling white floor tiles in your house. Moreover, if you have small children running around in the house, maintaining these tiles in the kitchen, living room and bathrooms can be quite a challenge. Depending on the kind of flooring you have, the cleaning methods and tips will vary.
How to Keep Tile Floors Clean
Irrespective of the type of tile and tile floor designs, there are two rules that one has to follow to maintain tile floors in bathrooms, kitchen, etc. The first rule is to wipe up spills immediately and the second rule to be remembered is maintenance cleaning keeps harsh chemicals and harder work at bay. Keep absorbent cloths, wet or dry vacuum cleaners to clear spills. We usually wipe up juice or pet accidents from the floor, however, we should not forget that water and dirt are also spills.
Neglecting muddy footprints or water around the door mat, can conduce to stains on the tile floors. Wipe your pet's feet every time he or she comes in from the outdoors, especially during rainy or snowy weather. Avoid allowing shoes inside the house during bad weather and have the feet wiped clean with a towel before entering the house. Neglect will only lead to stains, which will call for harsh chemical use. Harsh chemicals are bad for tile floors that look like wood and all other kinds of tiles. Dusting, sweeping and damp mopping the floors, as often as possible is necessary. Proper maintenance cleaning will save a lot of trouble and will also save additional costs of replacement.
How to Clean Tile Floors
You need to start the process of tile cleaning by sweeping the floor off all dust and dust bunnies. Sweep all the loose dirt into a pile and throw it in the dustbin. Use the vacuum cleaner attachment along the bottom of the baseboard and flooring. Vacuum the tile after moving the surface cleaner of the vacuum to the lowest setting.
Cleaning the Tiles with Citric Acid
For cleaning tile floors of the kitchen or any other part of the house, use the citric acid cleaning remedy. Get crystallized citric acid from the local store and use 1 cup of it to 1.5 gallons of hot water. Avoid buying the fine powder, as it can create a mess. Using your mop, spread the citric acid solution onto the floor lightly. Application of a little citric acid onto the floor leads to quicker evaporation of the solution. So by the time, you get to scrub the floor the solution has evaporated. Thus, cleaning large bathrooms can be quite cumbersome.
To avoid all this, pour enough citric acid solution over the tiles and leave it for sometime before scrubbing. Moreover, this way all the mineral deposits, dirt, rust and mold will also have time to break up. If you have not cleaned your floor tiles regularly, decent soaking time and scrubbing is required. Once the scrubbing has been done, rinse the floor using a bucket of clean water and a mop. Citric acid is not only environmental friendly and effective, but is also a tile cleaning agent that does not leave you noxious after the process.
Cleaning the Tiles with Oxygen Bleach
Oxygen bleach is a non-toxic, color and fabric-safe product. It does not produce any harsh fumes and removes all grease and food stains with minimal scrubbing. Oxygen ions from the bleach react with stain molecules, break them down, thereby allowing the grease to be rinsed away with little effort. Grout is a major problem with ceramic tile floors. To clean ceramic tiles, all you need to do is mix high quality oxygen bleach with warm water and stir until the bleach dissolves.
Next, pour the solution onto the floor tile, so that the grout lines get flooded with the solution. Allow the solution to work its way into the grout for a few hours. The longer the solution stays on the grout, the lesser scrubbing you will have to do. For maximum results, scrub the grout after every half an hour lightly and pour fresh bleach solution every time on the grout. At the end of the cleaning process, rinse the floor clean with water. Oxygen bleach solution serves well to remove red wine stains, beet juice stains, etc.
Besides ceramic tile flooring, there's vinyl flooring, stone flooring, etc. For travertine flooring, the cleaning method involves dust mopping on a regular basis and cleaning it with a neutral floor cleaner. Avoid vinegar and other acid cleaners on such stone flooring. Cleaning tile floors will not be such a trying job if done on a regular basis!
