These photographs of a Slate tiled kitchen floor are from a house in Lochwinnoch in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. You can see that the slate and grout was looking very dull and any sealer that was present had failed leaving the stone in need of a deep clean and re-seal.

Cleaning Slate Floor Tile and Grout

On the first day we stripped the floor of any remaining sealer using Tile Doctor Pro-Clean mixed 50/50 with Remove and Go, this was left to dwell for 5-10mins before scrubbing it in with a scrubbing pad and then extracting the slurry with a wet vacuum. It was important to ensure all the sealer was removed in order to get an even finish and to avoid any compatibility issues when re-sealing later.

After this we focused on cleaning the grout using more Pro-Clean this time worked in using a stiff grout brush by hand. Once done the floor was given a thorough rinse using a diluted solution of Tile Doctor Neutral Clean to remove any trace of cleaning solutions that may impact the sealer and again using the wet vacuum to get the floor as dry as possible.

Sealing Slate Floor Tiles

The floor was left to dry off overnight and then we returned on the second day to seal the slate with Tile Doctor Seal and Go which is a water based sealer (no smell) which adds a nice sheen to the tile and gave the desired finish. Slate is quite porous so five coats of Seal and Go were required to ensure the floor was fully sealed.