Tile floors have several advantages over common flooring materials. The tiles them self are relatively easy to clean and don’t stain, scratch, or absorb spills. However the grout in between them does. That’s where your handy dandy steam mop comes in. Check out the best steam mops for tile here and read on to learn how to best use these little firecrackers on your tile floors.
Check out our steam mop reviews for the best steam mop for tile floors. Our top picks were the Haan and Bissell steam mops. But this article isn’t about the best steam mops, but rather how to best use your steam mop on the tile flooring.
Preparation
Before you get started, make sure you grab a broom and dustpan and sweep the area you are about to clean. If you have a vacuum where you can disable the roller function then you can use that too. We have a shark vacuum that does a great job at this. Before you start sweeping make sure you have the tank on your steam mop filled up and then plug it in to the wall to allow for the water to warm up.
If your floor is greasy or slimy it wouldn’t be a bad idea to pre-treat it with a degreaser or an industrial cleaner to help breakdown stubborn deposits.
Do The Tiles First
The easiest way to clean the tile flooring is to section it off in small areas. Typically I like to section off areas of 3-4ft or slightly larger when I am cleaning any type of flooring. On your first pass over the area make sure your mop is setting on high steam, then if you run into any stubborn or old deposits go over them again with high steam just focus more time and energy around cleaning the deposits.
Once uyou are done with the tiles its onto cleaning the grout. Depending on what type of steam mop you have this can be a super easy task or a somewhat daunting one. Certain steam mops come with attachments or accessories that help you get down in between the tiles and do a great job at cleaning the grout. Check out our steam mop reviews for the best steam mops for tile floors.
Next, Do The Grout
Like I said earlier, cleaning tiles is a piece of cake using a steam mop, however the grout is a different story. Before I realized you could clean the grout with your steam mop, I did it the old fashion way with my elbow grease and a toothbrush.
Certain steam mops have detachable accessories that make cleaning grout a cinch. Others have attachments you can add to the end the pad to help give you some more scrubbing action. One thing for sure is that light colored grout in high traffic areas is gong to require substantially more cleaning than a darker colored grout.
For this part of the job, you are going to have to use the detachable hand unit of your steam mop. This will allow you to deliver a concentrated blast of steam to the floor. Work in small areas and focus more steam and time in the most troublesome spots. Yes I know this may seam like a slow and steady process, but trust me it is way better than using a cup and a toothbrush to clean up your grout lines. Been there done that.
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