LESLIE: Alright. John in Maryland’s next. What’s on your mind?
JOHN: Hi. Yes, I have a grout problem. I have a kitchen floor; it’s high traffic. I put in the tile myself; I put in the grout myself; and I put a Teflon seal over it. And it never seemed to work. It stains up and it takes forever to get it clean and when I get it clean it gets dirty in a couple of days.
TOM: It sounds to me like what you probably need is a grout stripper. And this is probably the most heavy-duty way to clean up those grout lines. There’s grout cleaners and there’s grout strippers and grout strippers are a lot more caustic and do a lot better job of pulling out those stains.
LESLIE: Well, it breaks down all of those stains and it almost even gets rid of a little layer of the grout that’s there. But it gets rid of the stains.
JOHN: I’ve never heard of that.
LESLIE: And they’re available at home centers and hardware stores. It’s called a grout stripper.
LESLIE: And then reseal the grout when you’re done.
JOHN: Should I use some kind of a silicone or a – or like a Teflon?
TOM: I think that the silicone is probably a better choice than the Teflon. I seem to get better results with that but make sure you get it cleaned first. Otherwise, you are sealing in whatever dirt that’s remaining.
FRED: Well, thank you so much.
TOM: You’re very welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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