Tile & Grout Cleaning in British Columbia

Almost always by floor area (per square metre or square foot), with a minimum job charge. Sealing after cleaning, shower recesses, and heavily stained or epoxy-smeared grout cost extra. Wall tiles are quoted separately from floors.

Yes for cement-based grout — a penetrating sealer slows re-staining and makes mopping more effective. Sealing is pointless on epoxy grout (already non-porous). Expect sealer to add meaningfully to the bill and need reapplying every 1-3 years in wet areas.

A typical kitchen or bathroom floor takes 1-2 hours; a whole-house tiled floor half a day. Floors are walkable almost immediately after extraction, but wait 24 hours before wet-mopping, and longer if sealer was applied.

Mopping pushes dirty water into porous grout lines, which sit lower than the tile face and act as gutters. After a professional clean, sealing the grout and switching to a flat microfibre mop with frequent rinse water dramatically slows re-soiling.

An alkaline pre-treatment to break down grease and soap scum, machine agitation with rotary brushes, then high-pressure hot water extraction that vacuums the dirty water away. It reaches into grout pores that mopping never touches.

Surface dirt, grease and most mould clean off well. Grout that is stained through its depth, or was never sealed and has absorbed years of dirty mop water, may only lighten. The fallback options are grout colour-sealing or re-grouting.

Marble, travertine and limestone need pH-neutral chemistry — acid-based tile cleaners etch them permanently. Tell the company your surface type up front; stone-safe cleaning and polishing is a different (pricier) service from ceramic/porcelain work.

Salt residue tracked in over winter leaves white haze and slowly degrades cement grout. An annual spring clean with alkaline pre-treatment strips the residue; sealing entry-area grout before winter makes the next spring far easier.