Thinking About Re-Grouting Shower Floor Tile? Pro. Tips Here.

If you are considering re-grouting your shower floor tile, here are a couple tips to help you make the right decision.



Your shower floor tile will not last forever as you know. The weakest link is the grout. There are many factors that promote the demise of your grout. Hot and cold from water, chemicals in water, PH of the water, chemicals used to clean your shower, soaps, shampoos, conditioner, and a general cornucopia of man made erosion.



What to look for,



When you see fit to consider re-grouting you can determine the grout effectiveness by removing the surface of the grout with whatever grout removal tool or process you select. Looking at the photo above, if you click the photo and blow it up you can see that I have removed grout and there is a small dark line. That dark line is where water is leeching up from the shower pan. That is not good. In this case I encountered about three small spots that were wet.



In order to do this re-grout job properly, a fan was placed in the shower and I waited 24 hours to allow the spots to dry before re-grouting. If you do not do this the wet areas will remain that way inviting black mold to grow under the tile. If you re-grout it wet you will be sealing the problem in, if it ever dries.



What to do.



1. Remove grout if you can down to the thinset with a grout removal tool. There are some new vibrating tools that do a super job (Harbor Freight about $30.00). I've tried the Dremmel grout removal bit and all I have to say is it needs to be a very small job or plan on going through boxful of bits. I quit using them because they didn't last long enough for me.



2. If you find wet spots in the grout know that you will have to dry it before grouting.



3. After re-grouting, caulk the corners both horizontal and vertical



4. Seal it, but be sure to caulk first. If you seal the tile, then caulk it, the caulk will quickly fail because it will not want to adhere to the sealed tile and grout.



5. Know that your shower will be down for a few days as you work through this process.



Other tips, "do not use a thin mosaic" or tile for the tile floor. The thicker the tile the deeper the grout can be and thus, more robust. Seal it once or even twice a year, I don't care what it says in the side of the sealer container for longevity. Use a larger tile on the walls, fewer grout lines = less opportunity for mold and water penetration. Do not use an acid based cleaner to clean it, it will deteriorate the grout like vinegar.



There, I hope some of this information will help you. My mission with this blog is to simply provide helpful information that will save you some time, money and aggravation.



I will update this post with a photo of the tools I use to remove grout shortly so come and and visit.