Grout Cleaning
Grout cleaning is a necessary chore for any household, but it can also be an expensive one. Whether you use over the counter cleaners from the grocery store or hire professional grout cleaning services, you can end up spending more than you would like. Professionals can cost close to two hundred dollars for a bathroom after all the fees and taxes. The cleaners in your grocery store cleaner isle can be four dollars per bottle or more and they do not last very long. For example, I used an entire bottle of scrubbing bubbles and only cleaned three quarters of my shower. Granted, it was very dirty, but still, that is expensive.
So the frugal home owner needs some inexpensive ways to clean his or her tile grout. Grout cleaning does not have to be an expensive job. You can make your own cleaner and the only additional supply you will need to purchase is a scrub brush. The brush should be easy to wield so make sure that there is enough room between the handle and the brush head for your hand to fit comfortably. Some of the more inexpensive brushes have too small of an area here and your knuckles take a beating. The brush should also be shaped such that the middle bristles are longer than the ones at the edge if possible. A good brush could run you as much as twenty five to thirty dollars, but you will never have to buy another brush and your grout will get exceptionally clean.
Making your own grout cleaning chemical is easy. Baking soda is an excellent cleaning agent and particularly good for grout cleaning because you make it into a paste. Mix baking soda with a little bit of water until you form a good paste. Put the paste of the grout lines and let it sit for ten minutes or so. Then you can scrub the grout lines in circular motions with great results. Compare six dollars for a bottle of shower cleaner to a dollar for a container of baking soda.
If dirt and grime is not your only problem and you need to get rid of mildew then alcohol is your answer. Most over the counter cleaners you can buy are made of almost entirely alcohol. If you look at the ingredients you will find alcohol near or at the top in all of them. So a spray bottle you buy at the dollar store full of alcohol will do just as good a job at killing mildew.
