Tile Regrouting / Recolouring Advice Needed

OzFrugie on 30/11/2016 - 23:48
Last edited 30/11/2016 - 23:49

Hi fellow Ozbargainers,

I bought a 20-year old apartment in Sydney where grouts in tiles look discoloured/dark and dirty.
This occurs in the shower floor & walls, bathroom floor (outside shower), kitchen and the entrance.
As far as I know, grouts can be discoloured not only because of dirt but also can be caused by mould which obviously unhealthy/unhygenic..

I am planning to do tile regrouting and/or recoloring.
One company suggested to do regrouting in the shower and the rest to do recoloring (using something called epoxy).
Not sure if recolouring would achieve the same result as regrouting..?
Another company suggested only to clean it but I think I am not keen on just cleaning especially in shower area as mould can already be rooted in the grouts..

Any recommendations in Sydney ? Can anyone share some experience/advice?

How much should I be looking at to get this done?
It's a 2 bedroom apartment so the area is not big at all, probably ~10sqm - 15sqm-ish.

Thanks in advance.

Home & Garden

Comments

  • subywagon on 01/12/2016 - 08:34

    You can get regrouting kits and recolouring kits from Bunnings. The regrouting kits let you go over the old grout with new grout and it appears white again. The recolouring kits are kind of like colour pen things.

    Sometimes you may need to get a grout knife and scrape back the old grout, then re-apply a grout re-finish (you cant put new grout over old it won't stick well).

    It's a pretty simple DIY job. Just boring and time consuming, but not exceedingly so.

  • BertieBrown on 01/12/2016 - 09:47

    I'd definitely suggest trying to clean the grout first, you may find that it is not so bad and this would be much, much easier than attempting to try and re-grout, which is a massive pain in the buttinsky. (You are really best to try and get all of the grout out of each join so to ensure that the new grout sticks). Also, I'm not sure how relevant this may be, but I'm sort of just going through the motions in my own mind, but depending on how the original waterproofing was done, if you break the original grout seal then you'd want to ensure that any new grout is adequately sealed to stop water from penetrating the tile membrane. (Because you may or may not know that kind of waterproofing has been done).

    Just my thoughts. At any rate, take your time and try and have fun with the process whichever way you go :)

  • Sunny84 on 01/12/2016 - 10:02

    Also interested in this topic, anyone had much success with the pen style / recolouring kits?

    I have a large area to do roughly around 100sqm

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