Grout permanately darker from water!

9 years ago

I posted this on the bathroom forum, but I thought I might get more responses if I post here. :)

We recently remodeled our master bath. We used grout in the color "bone" and it looked great. Once the work was complete, I started to scrub the floor. I used hot water with a little bit of vinegar in it. I only did a small portion of the tile because I was scrubbing on my hands and knees and needed a break. I noticed that as the tile dried, the grout was staying the dark color that it turned when it got wet. Long story short, the grout has never returned to the original color and is now much darker than it was before I scrubbed it. Is this normal?? Why didn't it turn back to the original color once it dried? The grout on our shower floor did not do this. It gets darker when wet, and returns to normal once it's dried. I scrubbed the floor over a week ago so it's had plenty of time to dry out.

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Comments (5)

jellytoast
9 years ago
"Once the work was complete, I started to scrub the floor."

I've always heard that vinegar is acidic and should not be used on grout, especially new grout.
User
9 years ago
Was the grout sealed? Does not sound like it was sealed.

Probably the vinegar causing the darkening.

Only sure remedy is to remove the darkened grout and install new. Then seal the entire floor in accordance with the grout/tile makers instructions.
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Vertise
9 years ago
Why would vinegar darken the grout color itself?

It might have removed what is a light colored effluorescence from the surface, often caused by too much water by the installer, and a common occurrence. Vinegar is a first chemical resort for doing that before hitting it with stronger acids manufactured by grout companies for that purpose. You do need to wait a period of time for curing so as not to break down the cementious material. It is not something you want to do repeatedly for that reason, early on or over the years.

You might check over on john bridge tile forums. It is very active and run by pros who assist on all discussions. Show them some pictures. It's a very friendly and laid back place. A wealth of information.

This post was edited by snookums2 on Sat, Sep 13, 14 at 12:58
aggierose
Original Author
9 years ago
I didn't scrub the floor until about 6 weeks after it was installed. It had not been sealed yet and I had actually tried to avoid the grout because of this, but of course some of the water still got on it. The tile installer was coming back to seal it and he is the one who told me to use the vinegar and water solution. He said he scrubs all of his newly installed floors with it and has never seen this happen. He wants to come back and stain the grout(at no charge). Does grout look good when it's stained?
vedazu
9 years ago
Well, I can tell you from personal example that it is better than what you are trying to change, but no way is it as good as a nice clean grouting. I accidentally instructed my tile person to use antique white on our off white backsplash. It is brown. Not cream. BROWN! I bought some grout stain and have been putting it on carefully. In the meantime, there was one section where I ran out of tile and it is now installed--with an ivory grout. Gorgeous. The stained section is better than brown, but not gorgeous. I'm finally going to bite the bullet and have the grout removed and do it again. Life is too short to live with something you really don't want.