Tag Archives: Grout Repair

Shower Wall Tile Regrouting

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Let’s face it – showers face a lot of wear and tear, including exposure to hot water, soaps and shampoos as well as sometimes harsh cleaning chemicals. After a while, mineral deposits can build up as well, making the shower look tired and needing some help. In this situation, shower wall tile regrouting can make a world of difference, usually in only one day.

This project was from a homeowner in Newton. The family had a shower where the wall grout had become cracked in some areas and was discolored in places. Of course, they always had the option of tearing out the shower, remodeling the entire room. Then they would have a shower that was brand new. Except that option has some drawbacks…… Like dust all over, weeks without a shower, tradesmen traipsing through their house for what seems like eternity and thousands and thousands of dollars!

Shower wall tile regrouting, on the other hand, is a one day project, costs much less, and leaves your house clean and neat. And the results? Check the before and after photos below to see for yourself.

It’s important to note that this is not just a ‘cleaning’ of the grout. It’s an actual physical replacement, taking out the old grout and applying fresh grout.

For unsanded, smooth grout, we use different hand tools to remove the grout, including razor blades, carbon steel scoring knives and sometimes power tools with diamond tipped blades for tough areas. Removing enough of the old grout is important for creating a channel for new grout.

We always do a deep cleaning of the tiles when regrouting. That way, the new grout next to clean tiles looks like a brand new installation, minus all the dust and aggravation of a remodeling project!

Tub shower walls before regrout
Tub Shower Before Regrout
Tub shower after regrout
Tub Shower After Regrout

Our contact information:

Act One – Marble and Tile
15 Main Street # 138
Watertown MA 02472-4403
https://cleanpolishmarblegraniteboston.com
617-221-4002 Text or Call

Service Area Map of Eastern Massachusetts
We Service All of Eastern Massachusetts

Regrouting Amesbury Shower Walls and Floor

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Amesbury Shower Before Regrouting
Before Regrouting
Amesbury Shower After Regrouting
After Regrouting

Even a well built shower may eventually need some attention to grout and caulking. This job in Amesbury Massachusetts included regrouting wall tile and also regrouting the shower floor. Shower floors can be problematic to regrout, since they often have much harder sanded grout. That’s difficult to remove and the smaller size tiles mean lots of grout lines. There can be problems with slow drying grout due to moisture beneath the floor tiles.

Regrouting wall tile is much more common, since shower walls usually have much softer unsanded grout. That’s the type we can typically remove and completely replace. Still, we can often regrout shower floors, even if we have to use extra efforts and some power tools to grind out the old grout.

In this case, the homeowner decided that regrouting wall tile was not enough, so we replaced the grout on both floor and walls.

Most jobs where we are regrouting wall tile only can be done in one day. Sometimes including the floor can mean we need to come back a second day. That’s what was needed for this job – we just ran out of hours on day one.

We carefully scraped out enough old grout to form a solid channel for new grout. Then we scraped out old caulking in the corners and edges, followed by a thorough cleaning of floor and walls. Then we add fresh grout and caulking. In many cases, it looks like a brand new shower!

If you’d like similar results, feel free to call or text us at 617-221-4002 or fill out the form below and we’ll get you a firm quote asap.

If you’d like to see more regrouting pages, check these links:

Our contact information:

Act One – Marble and Tile
15 Main Street # 138
Watertown MA 02472-4403
617-221-4002 Call or Text

Service Area Map of Eastern Massachusetts
We Service All of Eastern Massachusetts

Solving ‘Marble Mysteries’ – Regrouting Marble Shower Floor and Walls

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Marble shower Hingham before regrouting - green copper leaching
Marble shower Hingham before regrouting – green copper leaching
Marble shower Hingham with green copper leaching close up before regrouting
Marble shower Hingham with green copper leaching close up before regrouting
Regrouted and cleaned marble shower bench Hingham - green copper gone
Regrouted and cleaned marble shower bench Hingham – green copper gone

Sometimes stone maintenance can be a little bit hard to figure out – a ‘marble mystery’.

We got a call from a homeowner in Hingham, a suburb on Boston’s South Shore, who was frustrated with the look of his marble shower.

You can click on the before and after pictures to get a better resolution photo.

It was a beautifully installed stone shower, but he had noticed that some sort of green residue was showing on grout lines near the shower bench and onto the floor of the shower. It wasn’t mold, it wasn’t any form of cosmetic dye…at first we couldn’t figure out what it was at all.

Then the homeowner recalled that the original installers had run the copper shower pan liner up to and under the shower bench as a waterproofing measure. This is not the standard way to do it, but we have seen it done that way on occasion.

So over time the green copper ‘rust’ had leached through the grout lines and permeated the grout. Fortunately the marble itself wasn’t discolored. Technically, copper doesn’t ‘rust’, but it ages with a green color – think of the Statue of Liberty.

The marble didn’t need any diamond honing or polishing, so that was not part of the solution.

The Plan of Action: Steps to Regrouting the Marble Shower

1. Clean the marble shower surfaces with non acid, marble safe cleaning liquids
2. Regrout the walls of the shower with traditional non-sanded grout
3. Recaulk corners and edges
4. Regrout the sanded grout floor of the shower to remove the green discoloration
5. Apply clear penetrating sealer to protect the stone and grout

Regrouting marble shower walls is fairly standard work – we do it every week. But regrouting marble shower floors with sanded grout is not something that always needs to be done; the sanded grout is difficult to remove without using special grinding tools with diamond tipped blades. Still, we’ve done enough of them to know the process and it came out looking nifty and clean – no sign of green, just fresh new grout, clean marble and a ‘new’ look to a beautiful marble shower restored to its original appeal!

If you have a ‘marble mystery’, feel free to give us a call or text at 617-221-4002 or just fill out the form below with your contact information.

Our contact information:

Act One – Marble and Tile
15 Main Street # 138
Watertown MA 02472-4403
617-221-4002 Text or Call