3 Tips to Keep Your Tile Floors Clean & Sanitary

Business owners today understand the need to keep their business interiors clean and sanitary to prevent the spread of viruses, including COVID-19, and other germs. However, many do not realize the importance of properly disinfecting floors — even though business floors are high-touch surfaces.

Read on to learn three tips for keeping tile floors clean and sanitary to reduce the spread of germs around your facility.

1. Sanitize the Tile Floors Instead of Just Removing Dirt

Many facility owners sweep their tile floors with brooms and then mop them with simple cleaning solutions, such as soap and water. While this cleaning procedure may remove dirt from floors, it may not remove and kill all germs living on the floors.

Alternatively, start tile floor cleaning by dusting the floors instead of sweeping them with a broom. Bacteria can live in dust particles that many brooms leave behind. Then, clean and sanitize any ceramic or porcelain tile floors with a mixture of one gallon of water, 1/2-cup ammonia, 1/2 cup white vinegar, and 1/4-cup borax. Clean and sanitize marble, limestone, or granite tile with solution containing one gallon of water and 1/2-cup bleach.

When mopping with these solutions, be sure to coat the tile floor thoroughly; ideally, your floor should take about 10 to 15 minutes to dry after mopping to provide sanitizing agents enough time to kill most germs.

You can also clean your tile floors with a steam mop advertised to kill 99.9 percent of germs and bacteria living on the floor's surface.

2. Don't Forget to Clean and Sanitize the Grout

Tile floor grout typically harbors many more bacteria than tile floor surfaces because grout is often porous (unless properly sealed), and bacteria and other pathogens can become embedded in these pores.

Tile cleaning solutions often do not penetrate deeply enough into grout pores to kill all bacteria in them. For this reason, you should ideally clean your tile grout with a pathogen-killing grout-cleaning solution once a week.

You can clean and sanitize your grout by first combining one part baking soda with one part hydrogen peroxide and then work this mixture into the grout thoroughly with a small brush. Then, allow the solution to sit for about 10 minutes before rinsing it off with clean water.

Since cleaning and disinfecting grout can be such a tough task, you may want to hire a cleaning company to clean your grout professionally once a week.

3. Reseal the Tile Floors and Grout on a Periodic Basis

While not all tile floors need to be sealed, those that are made of porous materials should be resealed on a regular basis to keep dirt, bacteria, and water from entering the tile pores. Most ceramic and porcelain tile floors are non-porous, while most natural stone tile floors are porous.

In addition, most grout types are porous and you should seal them on a regular basis. When grout is sealed, dirt and bacteria tend to remain on the surface of the grout sealant instead of penetrating into grout pores. You can then remove these surface bacteria when you mop the floors, eliminating the need for frequent grout cleanings.

An easy test to determine if your grout needs to be resealed involves simply sprinkling a few drops of water along your grout line. If the grout absorbs the water, it is ready to be resealed. If the water remains beaded on the grout surface, your sealant is still intact and your grout does not yet need to be resealed.

As a business owner, you should aim to keep your tile floors as sanitary as you keep other high-touch surfaces in your facility. Contact the cleaning experts at JSA Janitorial Services Atlantafor all of your commercial tile floor and grout cleaning and sealing needs today.