Achieving a Lovely Satin Finish on Terracotta with Tile Doctor Seal and Go
We received an enquiry from a previous customer who lives in Whitegate near Northwich asking for a clean and seal of her small terracotta kitchen floor. It seems we did such a great job five years ago she was keen to ask us back to do it again.
Terracotta looks great in a Kitchen but you do need to maintain the sealer otherwise it will eventually wear down with use and let dirt become trapped in its pores, at which it becomes very difficult to keep clean as your standard mop and bucket won’t flush the dirt out of the pores.
Its also worth mentioning at this point that the life of a sealer can be greatly reduced with the use of strong cleaning products, most tile cleaning products you find in a supermarket are only designed for use on Ceramic or Vinyl flooring and are simply too strong for use on a sealed tile (always read the label!).
Deep Cleaning a Terracotta Tiled Kitchen Floor
After protecting the Kitchen units and skirting boards with plastic sheeting my first job was to strip any remaining sealer off the Terracotta tiles using Tile Doctor Remove and Go in 1 part solution to 4 parts water dilution. The solution was spread across the floor and then left to dwell for ten minutes before scrubbing it in with a black scrubbing pad attached to a rotary floor buffer running at a slow speed.
Removing all the old sealer is an important step as the floor will have experienced different levels of wear across the area and to apply more sealer on top will mean some areas become darker due to the build-up. For the best finish its always best to strip off the old sealer first and get down to the bare tile.
With the sealer removed the next step was to improve the appearance of the grout using more Remove and Go and worked in by hand with a scrubbing brush and a wire brush. Once done the slurry was extracted with a wet vacuum and the process repeated where necessary to make sure the Terracotta and grout was as clean as it could be. After a final rinse and dry with the wet vacuum the floor was left to dry off fully overnight.
Sealing a Terracotta Tiled Kitchen Floor
I returned the next morning and tested the tiles with a damp meter to ensure the tiles were dry before applying the sealer. All was well, so I started with the application of the first coat Tile Doctor Seal and Go which is a water-based sealer that works well on clay tiles and adds a lovely sheen finish to the floor. Due to the porous nature of Terracotta, it actually took eight coats of Seal and Go before it was completely sealed, each coat was applied using a paint pad.
The clean and new sealer really lifted the appearance of the kitchen much to the delight of my customer who was once again over the moon with the result. For aftercare cleaning I recommended Tile Doctor Neutral Tile Cleaner which is a mild but effective cleaning product designed for use on sealed tiles.