Can Carpet Cleaner Products Also Clean Grout?
Sometimes facility, building managers and homeowners want to clean grout but currently only have a carpet cleaner product available. Will this solution still clean grout good, is a pretty common question.
Some of the chemical properties of the cleaning solutions are the same and in most cases carpet cleaners are milder and safer.
There is some exceptions we want to point out and some questions to consider first.
Type of Tile Flooring
Grout is used to join tile flooring. The first question will be what kind of tile do you have. Fortunately this is a simple question, hard tiles come in two basic categories; Man-Made and Natural stone. It is an important question because man made tile is harder and much more chemically resistant.
Natural stone comes in a very wide variety of materials from the earth. Some stones are soft and chemical sensitive. If you discover your flooring is stone we would recommend only using neutral cleaning product until you speak with the tile store.
Most manufacturers will have technical cleaning information on their website you can quickly look up to confirm.
Type of Grout
There is two common types of grout cement based and epoxy. Cement based looks like well, cement and epoxy looks like plastic. The important part to know is the tile will usually be more chemically resistant than the grout in between (but not always).
Both acid and harsh alkaline detergents can damage the grout.
But Do They Work
Yes, carpet cleaning solutions are made to clean fiber though and not the specific challenge of getting soil to release from a hard grain in grouting.
Most carpet cleaner solutions will be between PH 7 (neutral) and 10 (alkaline). If unsure of ph level, check the label or the product makers website. These ranges are fine for most grouting and ceramic, porcelain tile.
*** As we mentioned above this become more important if you have natural stone. Then we would recommend only using neutral cleaner.
Most carpet cleaner products are meant to be washed and extracted away. Otherwise an ugly residue can remain. Make sure to vacuum dirty water thoroughly and rinse a couple times with cold water.
The short answer is yes they can be used but make sure they are not too strong for the flooring you have. Also vacuum and rinse very well.
