The tile was never the problem. Grout is porous, mopping feeds it, and getting soil back out takes pressure and vacuum — with the chemistry matched to what your floor is actually made of.
Reviewed and updated .
Almost nobody calls about tile. They call about grout — specifically about grout that started out one color and is now several shades darker, in lines, in a floor that gets cleaned regularly. The frustrating part is that the cleaning is what did it.
Cement grout is porous. It is essentially a hard sponge sitting a millimeter or two below the tile surface, in a channel that everything drains into. A mop lifts soil off the tile face into the bucket, and then that gray water runs into the lowest, most absorbent part of the floor and dries there. Do it weekly for three years and the grout is a record of every bucket of water you ever used.
Getting it back out is not a chemistry trick. It needs a cleaner with time to work, mechanical agitation along the joint, and then enough pressure and vacuum to lift the soil off the floor and out of the room rather than moving it to the next grout line. That last part is the equipment, and it is the whole difference between a professional result and a wet floor.
The other half of this job is knowing what your floor is made of before anything touches it — because on some surfaces the standard approach causes damage that no cleaning reverses.
Marble, travertine, limestone and onyx are calcium carbonate. Acid dissolves calcium carbonate. That is not a warning about long-term wear — it is a chemical reaction that happens on contact, and it takes the surface of the stone away.
The result is called etching, and the important thing to understand is that it is not a stain. A stain is a foreign substance sitting in the stone, and a good cleaner can often draw it out. Etching is the stone itself having been dissolved — the original polished surface is physically gone, leaving a dull, lighter mark. No cleaning brings it back. Fixing it means re-polishing the stone, which is stone restoration, a different trade.
What causes it is ordinary household stuff, which is why it happens so often:
Sealing does not prevent it. This catches people out badly. A sealer reduces absorption, which helps against staining, but etching is the acid attacking the stone itself — and harsh chemistry strips the sealer at the same time. The only real protection is keeping acid off the stone.
Granite and quartzite are silicate rather than calcium-based and will not etch from vinegar or lemon. They still want a neutral cleaner, because the chemistry that spares the stone still degrades the sealer.
The practical version: on any calcium-based stone, use a pH-neutral stone cleaner or well-diluted mild dish soap, and nothing else. If you are not sure what your floor is, ask before you clean it rather than after.
| Surface | Verdict | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Porcelain | Easiest of all | Fired dense and near-impervious, so the tile itself barely absorbs anything. All the soil is in the grout, which is exactly where the work goes. Takes heat, pressure and alkaline cleaner without complaint. |
| Glazed ceramic | Straightforward | The glaze is a glass layer, so the face is protected. Watch for worn glaze in old traffic paths, where the body underneath starts absorbing. |
| Quarry and saltillo | Porous, needs sealing | Unglazed and thirsty. They stain readily, they hold cleaner if it is not rinsed out properly, and they want resealing after cleaning rather than as an upsell. |
| Granite and quartzite | Durable, silicate-based | Will not etch from acid the way calcium-based stone does. Still wants a neutral cleaner, because harsh chemistry strips the sealer even when it spares the stone. |
| Slate | Careful, it flakes | Layered stone that can spall and shed if worked too aggressively. Cleans well with the right pressure and the wrong tool takes the surface off. |
| Marble, travertine, limestone, onyx | Never acid, ever | Calcium carbonate. Acid dissolves it on contact and the damage is physical, not a stain. This is the single most important line on this page — see the section below. |
Not sure which you have? Porcelain and ceramic ring hard and cool and have a uniform factory face. Natural stone varies tile to tile, because it came out of the ground rather than a kiln. Send a photo when you call if you want it confirmed before anyone arrives.
| Type | Short version | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Sanded cement grout | Porous — seal it | Sand added for strength, used in joints wider than about an eighth of an inch. The most common household grout and the one that absorbs everything. Sealing is what keeps it looking clean. |
| Unsanded cement grout | Porous — seal it | For narrow joints and wall tile. Smoother, slightly less absorbent than sanded, still porous enough to need sealing. |
| Epoxy grout | Non-porous — no sealer needed | Resin rather than cement. It does not absorb, so it does not stain and it does not want sealing. If your grout has never discolored in ten years, this is probably why. |
| Grout that is cracked or crumbling | Not a cleaning job | Missing or powdery grout means regrouting, and cleaning it first mostly washes out what is left. Published 2026 regrouting runs $3 to $24 per square foot. |
| Silicone caulk at corners and edges | Replaced, not cleaned | The flexible bead where floor meets wall or wall meets wall is caulk, not grout. Once mold is growing inside it, it gets cut out and replaced — cleaning does not reach into silicone. |
Sealer goes on dry grout after cleaning, never on damp grout, or it does not penetrate and does not last. Any deep clean removes whatever sealer was left, so resealing afterwards is part of doing the job properly rather than an upsell — and on epoxy grout it is genuinely unnecessary, which you should be told rather than sold.
Most people have no idea, including people who paid to have it sealed four years ago. The test takes thirty seconds and needs a glass of water.
Do the test in two or three places, because sealer wears out fastest where people walk. A hallway can be bare while the same grout under a table is still fine. And if the darkened patch dries back to normal in ten minutes, nothing is wrong with your grout — it is just unprotected.
| Type | Verdict | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Penetrating / impregnating sealer | The right choice for most floors | Soaks into the grout and lines the pores from inside, so liquids bead and sit long enough to be wiped up. Leaves no film, does not change the look, and does not peel. Reapply every one to two years in wet or high-traffic areas. |
| Topical sealer | Use with caution | Forms a film on the surface, often with a sheen. It looks impressive on day one and it wears unevenly in traffic paths, can cloud if moisture gets underneath, and eventually has to be stripped rather than simply reapplied. On floors it is usually more trouble than it is worth. |
| Color seal | For grout that is stained rather than dirty | A pigmented coating bonded to the grout that recolors and seals in one step, at roughly $1–$4 per square foot. The answer where cleaning has gone as far as it can and the grout is still discolored. It also lets you change the grout color without regrouting. |
| Nothing at all | Correct on epoxy grout | Epoxy is resin rather than cement and does not absorb, so it does not need sealing. Anyone selling you sealer for epoxy grout is selling you something you do not need. |
| Grout pens and paint from the hardware store | Not a sealer | They color the surface and seal nothing. They wear off unevenly in traffic and look worse a year later than the grout did before. |
One thing worth being clear about: sealer resists staining. On calcium-based stone it does not prevent etching, because that is acid dissolving the stone itself rather than something soaking in. Sealed marble still etches from vinegar.
Porcelain, ceramic, quarry, slate or calcium-based stone, and cement grout or epoxy. This decides the chemistry and the pressure before anything else does, and getting it wrong on marble or travertine causes damage that cleaning cannot undo.
Loose grit comes off dry. Wet it first and you are grinding sand across the tile with a machine, which on softer stone and worn glaze does real harm.
An alkaline cleaner on porcelain and ceramic; a neutral-pH product on natural stone. Grout is porous, so the solution needs minutes to get into it and break the bond — spraying and immediately rinsing achieves very little.
Brushed by hand along the joints where the soil actually is. This is the slow part of the job and it is the part that separates a real result from a wet floor.
A closed rotary tool delivers hot water at pressure and vacuums it straight back up, so soil leaves the room instead of being pushed into the next grout line. This is the equipment difference — it is not something a mop or a household steamer replicates.
Residue left in grout attracts soil straight back. Lines are checked individually and anything still holding soil gets worked again before we move on.
Sealer goes on dry grout, not damp grout, or it will not penetrate and will not last. On a job with sealing included, that usually means returning or allowing drying time rather than sealing over moisture to save an hour.
Half a floor cleaned next to half uncleaned is the honest way to see what the work did. You get to look before the second half is finished, not after everything is packed away.
Published 2026 national ranges. Measure the room and multiply — that gets you close before anyone visits.
| Item | Typical range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Tile and grout cleaning | $0.50–$3.50 per sq ft | Published 2026 range. Grout condition, joint width and how long it has been move it more than tile type does. |
| Minimum charge | $100–$200 | Standard across the trade for a standalone visit. One small bathroom on its own sits at the minimum. |
| Average bathroom, 40–100 sq ft | $20–$350 | Wide because a guest bath with sealed grout and a neglected primary bath are not the same job. |
| Kitchen or primary bath, 100–250 sq ft | $50–$900 | The most common single-room job. |
| Large tiled living area, 200–450 sq ft | $100–$1,600 | Open-plan tile. Measured rather than estimated by eye. |
| Grout sealing | $0.25–$1.50 per sq ft | Added after cleaning, on dry grout. The step that decides how long the result lasts. |
| Grout color sealing / restoration | $1–$4 per sq ft | Recolors and seals in one. The answer for grout that is permanently stained rather than dirty. |
| Regrouting | $3–$24 per sq ft | Not us — a tile trade. Quoted here so you can judge whether cleaning is the right spend. |
| Booked with carpet in one visit | Costs less than two trips | Travel and setup are paid once. Carpet plus tile is the most common pairing after carpet plus upholstery. |
The regrouting row is there deliberately. If your grout is cracked or crumbling, cleaning is the wrong spend and you should be able to see that for yourself. See the full pricing guide.
No line items appear for these.
Told to you before anything starts.
Including two that actively make it worse.
A mop does not clean grout, it feeds it. You lift soil off the tile face into the water, then push that dirty water into the grout lines, which are lower and porous. Every mopping makes the grout slightly darker than the mopping before. This is why grout lines darken in a house that gets mopped weekly.
Heat with almost no extraction. Steam loosens soil and then leaves it in the joint with nowhere to go, and on sealed grout repeated steam breaks the sealer down. The floor looks better for two days.
Fine on porcelain, catastrophic on marble, travertine, limestone or onyx — see below. It also degrades grout sealer on any surface, so even where it does no visible harm it is quietly removing the protection you paid for.
Whitens the surface of grout and does nothing to what is inside it, so the result fades within weeks. It also weakens cement grout over time and destroys anything it splashes onto.
This genuinely works, on a small area, if you have the knees for it. The problem is recovery — without extraction the soil you loosened settles back into the joint as the water dries. It is why a scrubbed floor looks worse a week later.
They cover the color, they sit on top rather than sealing anything, and they wear off unevenly in traffic. Colorsealing done properly is a different product applied differently.
One local thing worth knowing: Aiken city water is soft. The City of Aiken publishes its hardness at roughly 35 to 42 ppm, about 2 to 2.5 grains per gallon, which is well inside the soft range. That matters because the white film on a shower here is usually soap scum and body oil rather than the hard mineral scale people assume, and the two respond to different chemistry. If you are on a private well outside the city, hardness varies and mineral deposits are a real possibility — mention it when booking.
Otherwise, a shower is a different job from a floor. The soil is soap scum and body oil rather than tracked-in grit, and the enemy is a room that never fully dries. Aiken's humidity means a bathroom without good ventilation stays damp between uses for most of the year, and porous unsealed grout in a permanently damp room is as good as mold gets.
Cleaning removes what is growing and the soap film feeding it, and sealing slows its return. What neither does is fix the conditions, so the honest advice is unglamorous: run the extractor fan for twenty minutes after the shower rather than during it, squeegee or wipe the walls down, and leave the door open. That does more for shower grout than any product.
The one thing to know before booking: the flexible bead in the corners and where the wall meets the floor is silicone caulk, not grout. Once mold has grown inside silicone it is under the surface, and cleaning does not reach it — you can bleach it white and it comes back within weeks, because it never left. Moldy caulk gets cut out and replaced, which is a tile trade rather than a cleaning job. If your shower has black lines only in the corners, that is caulk and you are looking at replacement, not cleaning.
| Setting | What matters | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Restaurant kitchens | Quarry tile, grease, and a health inspection | Grease works into quarry tile and grout and standard mopping spreads it. Degreasing plus pressurized extraction, scheduled around service hours. The floor also stops being slippery, which is the part that matters most. |
| Restrooms, public and staff | The highest-visibility floor you own | Urine in grout around fixtures is the usual problem and it behaves like pet urine on carpet — porous material holding it below the surface. Cleaning plus sealing, on a schedule. |
| Entries and lobbies | Where all the sand arrives | Aiken grit gets tracked in here first and grinds at the glaze. Most cost-effective floor in a building to put on a maintenance cycle. |
| Medical, dental and salon | Cleaning plus sanitizing | Usually wants a sanitizing step and out-of-hours scheduling. Sealed grout matters more here than anywhere because it is the difference between a wipeable floor and a porous one. |
| Churches, schools and halls | Large areas, low frequency | Big tiled areas that get one thorough clean a year rather than a rolling schedule. Priced by measured area with a rate that falls with size. |
| Retail and short-term rentals | Between tenants or between guests | Turnover work, scheduled the same way as move-out cleaning and invoiced per property. |
Commercial tile is quoted on measured area with a rate that falls with size, and scheduled around your hours rather than ours. See commercial cleaning.
Cleaning removes soil from grout and tile. It does not undo damage, and on tile the difference is easy to mistake because both look like “the floor is discolored.”
Permanently stained grout. Dye from a spilled drink, rust, or years of gray mop water in unsealed grout can go beyond what cleaning reaches. When it does, color sealing recolors and seals in one step at around $1 to $4 per square foot. You will be shown a test patch rather than promised an outcome.
Etched stone. Acid has removed the surface. Cleaning a dull etch mark just gives you a clean dull etch mark. Re-polishing is stone restoration, a separate trade.
Worn glaze. Ceramic that has had its glaze walked off in a traffic path is showing the porous body underneath. It will absorb from now on and look duller than the rest of the floor whatever you do to it.
Cracked, loose or missing tile and crumbling grout. These are repair jobs. Cleaning crumbling grout mostly removes what is left of it, which is why you get told first rather than afterwards.
Recurring efflorescence. The white mineral bloom cleans off easily and comes straight back, because it is moisture moving through the tile assembly and depositing salts as it evaporates. Repeated efflorescence is a message about water getting in somewhere, not a cleaning problem — and treating it as a cleaning problem means paying for the same job forever.
Mold inside silicone caulk. Under the surface, out of reach, and it returns within weeks of any bleaching. Cut out and replaced, not cleaned.
Published 2026 ranges put it at $0.50 to $3.50 per square foot, with a minimum charge of $100 to $200 for a standalone visit. A typical bathroom runs $20 to $350, a kitchen or primary bath $50 to $900, and a large tiled living area $100 to $1,600. Sealing adds $0.25 to $1.50 per square foot. Booking it alongside a carpet cleaning costs less than two separate trips.
Because mopping is what makes it dark. A mop lifts soil off the tile face into the bucket water, and that dirty water then runs into the grout lines, which sit lower and are porous. Every mopping deposits a little more. The tile looks clean and the grout gets steadily worse, which is exactly the pattern most people describe.
On porcelain or glazed ceramic, it will not destroy anything, though it does break down grout sealer over time. On marble, travertine, limestone or onyx, absolutely not. Those stones are calcium carbonate and acid dissolves them on contact — the damage is physical removal of the stone surface, not a stain, and no cleaning brings it back.
A stain is a foreign substance sitting in or on the stone, and it can often be drawn out. Etching is the acid having dissolved the stone itself, so the original polished surface is physically gone. It shows as a dull, lighter mark where something acidic sat. Removing etching means re-polishing the stone, which is stone restoration work rather than cleaning.
Vinegar and lemon juice are the common ones, along with citrus cleaners, lime and calcium removers such as CLR or Lime-A-Way, many bathroom tile cleaners, and plenty of generic all-purpose cleaners that contain acid without advertising it. Wine and other acidic drinks do it too. On calcium-based stone the safe answer is a pH-neutral stone cleaner or well-diluted mild dish soap, and nothing else.
No, and this is a common and expensive misunderstanding. Sealer reduces absorption, which helps against staining. Etching is acid dissolving the stone itself, and a sealer does not prevent that — harsh chemistry strips the sealer as well. Keeping acid off the stone is the only real protection.
Cement grout, both sanded and unsanded, is porous and should be sealed. Epoxy grout is resin rather than cement, does not absorb, and does not need it. Reseal roughly every one to two years in a wet or high-traffic area and less often elsewhere — and always after a deep clean, because cleaning removes whatever sealer was left.
Sometimes cleaning gets most of the way there, and sometimes the grout is permanently discolored rather than dirty — dye from a spill, years of mop water, or grout that was never sealed. Where cleaning cannot do it, color sealing recolors and seals in one step at around $1 to $4 per square foot. You will be told which situation you have after a test patch, not before.
Yes. Half the floor cleaned against half uncleaned is the honest way to judge the result, and it happens before the job is finished rather than after everything is packed away. If the difference is not worth the money, that is a reasonable moment to say so.
Not on porcelain or glazed ceramic with sound grout. It can on slate, which flakes, on soft stone, and on grout that is already crumbling — and in those cases pressure gets reduced or the job gets declined. Grout that comes away under cleaning was already failing; the cleaning found it rather than caused it.
Yes, and showers are a different soil — soap scum and body oil rather than foot traffic, plus mold in a warm damp room. What cleaning will not fix is mold growing inside the flexible silicone caulk at the corners and edges. That is not grout and it does not clean; it gets cut out and replaced by a tile trade.
Because the conditions never change. Aiken humidity plus a room that does not dry between uses is ideal for it, and porous unsealed grout gives it somewhere to hold. Cleaning removes what is there, sealing slows it returning, and running the extractor fan for twenty minutes after a shower does more than either.
Mineral salts carried to the surface by moisture moving through the tile assembly, left behind as the water evaporates. It brushes and cleans off, but it will keep coming back until the moisture source is dealt with, so recurring efflorescence is a signal about water rather than a cleaning problem.
If the grout is cracked, powdery or missing in places, yes — cleaning mostly washes out what is left. Published 2026 regrouting runs $3 to $24 per square foot against $0.50 to $3.50 for cleaning, so it is worth knowing which you need. We do not regrout, and you will be told plainly if that is what your floor wants.
Most single rooms are a couple of hours. The floor is walkable as soon as it is dry, usually within an hour or two with airflow, though sealing needs longer — sealer goes on dry grout and needs curing time before the room goes back into normal use. You will be given a specific time on the day.
Yes, and they are quoted per area rather than by the square foot because they are small and fiddly. Natural stone countertops get the same rule as floors: neutral pH only, and etching is a restoration job rather than a cleaning one.
Every one to two years for a kitchen, entry or main bathroom, longer for a guest bath or a low-traffic room. Sealed grout stretches that considerably. The signal is the grout looking darker than the day it was laid, not the tile looking dull.
Put a few drops of water on a grout line in a spot that gets walked on and wait two or three minutes. If the water is still beading, the sealer is working. If the grout darkens where the water sat, it absorbed it and the sealer is gone or was never applied. Test two or three places, because sealer wears out fastest where people walk — a hallway can be bare while the same grout under a table is fine.
A penetrating or impregnating sealer soaks in and lines the pores from inside, leaves no film, does not change the look and does not peel. A topical sealer forms a film on the surface, often with a sheen — it looks impressive at first, wears unevenly in traffic paths, can cloud if moisture gets underneath, and eventually has to be stripped rather than simply reapplied. On floors, penetrating is almost always the right answer.
City of Aiken water is soft — the city publishes hardness at about 35 to 42 ppm, roughly 2 to 2.5 grains per gallon. So the white film on a shower here is usually soap scum and body oil rather than the hard mineral scale people assume, and the two need different chemistry. On a private well outside the city, hardness varies and mineral deposits are genuinely possible, so say so when booking.
Yes. Restaurant kitchens where grease is worked into quarry tile, public and staff restrooms where urine has gone into grout around fixtures, entries and lobbies that catch all the tracked-in grit, and medical or salon floors that want a sanitizing step. Quoted on measured area with a rate that falls with size, and scheduled around your hours.
Sealed, and with dry soil swept rather than mopped in, a year or two before it needs doing again. Unsealed, considerably less — grout starts absorbing again from the first mopping. Sealing is what turns a clean floor into a floor that stays clean, which is why it matters more than any product you buy afterwards.
Efflorescence — mineral salts carried to the surface by moisture moving through the tile assembly and left behind as the water evaporates. It brushes and cleans off easily, and it comes straight back until the moisture source is dealt with. Recurring efflorescence is a message about water getting in somewhere rather than a cleaning problem, and paying to clean it repeatedly solves nothing.
Light furniture is moved and put back. Appliances that are plumbed or heavy — refrigerators, ranges, washers — stay where they are and get cleaned around, because moving them risks the floor, the appliance and the connections behind them. If you want under them done, have them pulled out before we arrive.
Yes, with color sealing. It recolors and seals in one step at around $1 to $4 per square foot, so you can go darker without regrouting — and darker grout in a kitchen or entry is genuinely more practical than the pale grout most floors were laid with. Going lighter is harder and depends on what is there now.
Sweep or vacuum more than you mop, because dry grit is most of what dirties a floor and mopping just relocates it. When you do mop, change the water when it goes gray rather than pushing it around, and use a neutral cleaner — not vinegar, not bleach. Wipe shower walls down and run the fan. Keep the grout sealed.
That plus what the floor is made of gets you a straight range on the phone — and an honest answer about whether yours needs cleaning, sealing or regrouting.
Not sure what your tile is? Email a photo to carpetcleaningaiken@gmail.com.
