Deep clean the floor including the grout line

Description:

This Brompton Road, London, project documents deep cleaning of a Victorian ceramic tiled floor, including its grout lines. The original notes also describe repolishing the tiles to a glossy appearance. Photographs show the black-and-white pattern at an entrance and on adjoining steps, where dirt can collect differently from the open floor.

Cleaning the joints is important because darkened grout can make a patterned floor look uneven even when the tile faces are clean. The treatment chosen for ceramic must suit the existing glaze or surface finish; some tiles should not be abraded like natural stone. The gallery shows the visible outcome of this assignment, but the original notes do not identify products, a measured area or a slip-test result. For a comparable heritage tiled floor, check loose tiles, joints and earlier coatings before deciding on cleaning or polishing.