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mudworm_gw

What to do with the aged tile grout?

mudworm
9 years ago

Our bathroom is old. The three walls above the bathtub are tiled. The grout lines (1/16" mostly) were discolored. Yesterday, I employed the method from http://youtu.be/flfAc_jMzvM (awesome!) and did some good cleaning. It's looking much better now, but I realize that there are some tiny pockets here and there and the cleaned grout lines are not exactly like new.

I can think of three approaches to address this:
1) simply apply tile sealer over the three walls. This is the easiest. But will the sealer really seal all the aged grout lines?

2) use DAP 3.0 Kitchen/bath caulking (10-year mold resistance) to caulk over all the grout lines. I need to remove and re-caulk the big (1/2") gap between the walls and the bathtub anyway, so I have the tube ready. But can caulking be applied over grout lines?

3) Re-grout all three walls. I happen to have Fusion Pro white grout (stain resistant) around since I just did the backsplash. I definitely do not want to have to take out all the old grout. Can I still just grout over the existing grout?

For you experienced DYI'ers and contractors out there, what would you do? One of above or something else?

Thank you!

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