Renewing old grouting in tiled bathrooms / showers

We are often asked to "regrout" a shower cubicle or around a bath, because the grout has got old and nasty-looking. Customers often confuse grout with silicone sealant. Replacing the silicone sealant (rubbery substance around the edge of the shower tray or bath) is straightforward (especially now all our handymen are familiar with Stan's perfected technique). Replacing grout (the rock-hard substance filling the gaps between the tiles) is not straightforward at all. In fact, you may as well not even attempt it - the grout is usually harder than the tiles, so any attempt to scrape out the old grout will inevitably result in a lot of damage to the tiles.

You'd usually be better off getting a tiler to re-tile from scratch.

Sometimes, if there is just a small area of grout that has deteriorated, you can scrape out the loose bits and apply fresh grout. But even this isn't ideal, because the new grout will look much, well, newer than the old grout in the rest of the tiles.

However, we now have a new solution: steam-cleaning the entire area, which we have found is astonishingly effective. It is time-consuming (takes about a day to do properly), but makes the tiles and grout as good as new. Plus, if there are any areas where the grout has deteriorated and crumbled, it can be replaced without the new grout looking out of place.

Even a full day's labour (plus a small charge for hire of the steam cleaner) is a lot less than having the whole area re-tiled.

The first customer we did this for was so impressed, they asked us to come back once a month (!) to keep their bathroom in pristine appearance.

If you'd also like tired tiles to look as good as new, give us a call on 0800 426 396, or e-mail fixit@0800handyman.co.uk