Many home owners were nice enough to help me with my roots in the pipe issue I had. So maybe some one knows how to deal with my newest issue. My bathroom tiles are starting to get mold IN them. I have travertine tile and I need to reseal the tile again. However, there is mold in the tile itself since it is poures tile. Any help would be appreciated.
Get a respirator and clean the tile with muratic acid. (dont splash it on anything when u do however) U can get it a Menards(my fav) or Home Depot, Ace, etc. Dont breath the shit however Then reseal the tile after fixing any possible grout issues as well If that doesnt work your out of luck(might take a couple times but should work without issue) Also when u reseal, u have the time to do it twice since u are doing it yourself, I recommend this as well.
You could try bleach on a tile first. Not quite as hard to work with as muratic acid, but might not have the punch needed to get rid of the mold. You may have to dissolve what's left of your sealant first, too. Acetone, maybe? (AGAIN, USE RESPIRATOR)
What respirator would you guys recommend? Also, anyone try this on their own tile before. I was hoping for something less extreme, but maybe not. LOL.
Any good quality paper(good quality) will help a ton if u cant get a full face respirator. Keep it ventilated and only do as far as u can safely and take a break. I had to do this in both bathrooms in my houses(shower included) and the apartment bathroom. It will get it as nice looking and as clean as it's going to get. If its in the tile, bleach isn't gonna cut it most likely.
I just looked. I cannot use Acid on Travertine. It dissolves it, since it is in the limestone family. I called the place I bought tile from. They said baking soda and Peroxide and Dawn liguid. If not, cup of bleach to 1/2 gallon of hot water.
I always used the "clorax bleach pen" leave it on for 1-3 minutes and just wipe it off. Also try "squeegee-ing your tiles" after when you shower it always worked for me, in Florida. As mentioned above if your grout has bleach in it, bleach won't get it out. Your off taking the grout out and putting fresh grout in.
Thinking about it the baking soda and peroxide seems like your best bet if ya got limestone based tile........ That makes it slightly caustic, heavy cleaner/alcohol and dawn for general dirt cutting and body based oils. Muratic acid will make grout shine like new. Like I said in the other post, if u can clean it twice and seal it twice when done(I hate doing this #@!$ so once right is a lot easier) That really sucks, mental note I will never use a limestone based tile.
Yeah, I wanted the ceramic, wife wanted the travertine, guess who won? Also, I squeege, wife doesn't. I end up having to clean the mold cause she cannot get it. Lol.
Or just let her have the pleasure of cleaning this mess up... And sealing it...then I bet she'd squeege. sounds nasty and a pain, now I know why I stayed with ceramic.
