Grout sealing
 

We need to seal our grout. When I think about it doing it myself it appears to be miles of grout. Has anyone found someone to seal grout at a reasonable cost?

It is really an easy task to do yourself. Buy one of the grout sealers that have the applicator built into the top of the bottle. It is a wick type top that is about a quarter inch wide (width of most tile spacing). Just turn this over, squeeze the bottle to saturate the wick and run along the grout lines. Do the entire length of the space in one direction, move to the next space and continue until one direction is completed. Then start going the other direction until the job is finished. I have a 1900 square foot home with tile in the kitchen, laundry, living room, dining room, and both bathrooms. It took less then 2 hours to do the entire house. Now I did it when the rooms were empty, but even doing a room at a time and moving things out of the way it shouldn't more then half a day.

If this still seems to be to much work, call David at "All in One Flooring" and he will do it for a reasonable price.

Thanks for the tip. I may do it in more than one session. Did you do one coat? Someone said they did two.

I only did one, but have also heard that two is good. So I may wait a year and do it again. I have also heard since I did it that one brand of sealer has a wick top that is a roller and works even better and goes faster than what I used. Will have to look for that.

I've done my own as well and it's really not hard.

l2: If you find that wick top roller, please share. I'm going to do mine again soon. Last one lasted about 3 years. Yellowing is always a problem. Thanks

I too used a wick roller. I just did a search and it showed that Home Depot had the roller bottles to fill with grout sealer. If extra rollers are available, you might pick up some because the grout could wear down the roller. I also a sit on rolling garden cart, and just rolled along.

The man who laid the tile said when the sealer was no longer sinking in and was beading, there was no need to reseal or ad more sealer.

There is also a spray that you can buy. I have used the roller and the spray is much easier. You just hold it about 18" above the grout line (about arms length) and walk and spray. You don't have to bend over or get on your knees at all and since it dries clear, you can't see any overspray. It can be bought at Lowe's or Home Depot. Check in the tile department.

We recently sealed all of our tile....it really was not a bad job. Bought the product at Hm Depot...green & yellow bottle. We applied 3 coats. We purchased our home as a re-sale and the living room was tiled however it was obvious the tile had not been sealed since the grout was dirty. So, prior to sealing that we needed to clean it. Did that job ourselves and I must say the grout came out looking new. Experimented with commerical cleaners that did an ok job... the best results came from using plain ole water & Dawn detergent...just don't use too much as it will be sudsy.