If grout is not cleaned, the white color of it will change to unlikeable brown.
But, don’t worry! You only need baking soda and vinegar to remove the mold stains and the dirt effectively without hiring a professional.
Here are the steps on how to clean grout with vinegar and baking soda:
Read also: How to Cleaning and Sparkling Glass Stovetop in Minutes.
1. Mix Your Baking Soda with Water to Make a Paste
First of all, prepare all the equipment and materials needed. You will need to prepare baking soda, water, and a small bowl.
Then mix the baking soda with water in the bowl. Make sure you mix equal amounts of water and baking soda to get the perfect solution.
Once all the materials are in the bowl, stir them until they turn into a paste. A good paste is the one that is easy to be applied to the grout. One more additional note for this step is to get the right amount of the mixture to get enough amount of paste needed to clean all the grouts.
2. Apply the Paste
Next, grab a brush to apply the paste. To apply the paste, you need to pick up that paste using a brush and then spread the paste over grouts. You could apply the paste using the same brush you will use later to scrub the grouts.
The kind of brushes used for brushing the grout and scrubbing the grout could be found in the nearby stores of home improvement.
However, if you think you couldn’t find those brushes easily, you could use a sponge instead. Other alternatives to brushes are a sponge that has scouring sides or simply your old toothbrush. Those tools will work just perfectly well.
3. Make a Mixture of Vinegar and Water
The next step is making the solution from vinegar and water. To get the best result in the cleaning process later, make sure you use warm water instead. Also, to get the easier application in the cleaning process later, make the solution in a spray bottle.
Once you have all equipment and materials ready, mix the warm water with the vinegar in an equal amount. For mixing them you could use another container such as a bowl. Then pour the solution into a spray bottle.
4. Apply the Solution
Now, apply the solution. Spray the mixture of water and vinegar onto any grouts you see. Before spraying the vinegar, make sure you have applied the baking soda on the grouts. Then spray the solution of vinegar directly on the baking soda.
In the application, you don’t need to spray lots of solution. Even a single spray of vinegar solution will be adequate to make the baking soda begin fizzing.
5. Wait for a While
After the application of the vinegar solution, you need to wait for a while to let the baking soda work. You only need to wait for 5 minutes only. During this length of time, you will see how the vinegar making a reaction with the baking soda.
The reaction between those two will cause a fizz. During that length of time, the fizz occurring will loosen the grout’s grime so that you could clean the grouts up easily later.
6. Scrub the Grouts
As you begin to see the grime on the grouts starting to lose, you could start scrubbing the grouts. To scrub it, use a grout brush. This kind of brush enables the vinegar to work furtherly with the baking soda. However, if you could find any grout brushes, you could use an alternative which is stiff-bristled brushes, toothbrushes, or scouring sponge.
When you do the scrubbing, you may be required to use more muscle power. Although this step may be quite tiring, the grime will be removed easily with this action. When you do the scrubbing, make sure you look out for any dark areas.
Such areas indicate the place at which the grime still stays on the grout. When you see such areas, try to do the scrubbing for many times. If the areas remain dark, you can use hydrogen peroxide to make the cleaning easier.
7. Wipe Up to Clean Up
Once you make sure you have done enough scrubbing, you will need to wipe it up. Why the wiping is up needed? It is because the scrubbing process will leave you with dirty baking soda and vinegar. To wipe the dirt up, you will need paper towels. This will enable you to pick up any mess from the scrubbing.
If you don’t have any paper towels or you want to save on the use of paper towels, you can simply use old rags. If you still find the difficulty in finding the rags, you can use a sponge. Sponges can ease the process of loosening the grimes and also of cleaning on the grouts.
8. Mop the Floor
Finally, here is the last process of cleaning the grouts. You surely want to have shinning floor. That’s why; you need to mop the floor. Yet, before mopping the floor, you need to do another step first. You need to make sure you already sweep and or vacuum up the left-over of baking soda on any surface of the floor. Make sure that you have removed all the left-overs from the scrubbing process.
Once you are done with removing any left-overs, you could mop the floor just as how you normally do it. If you think you cannot reach the grouts on the unreachable surfaces, you can swap the mop with rag that is dampened into clean water.
Once you are done with the mopping, just let the floor dry before you do any activities on it. Now you have clean and more comfortable floor. Whenever the grouts appear again, simply follow the steps above.
Don’t worry too much if you see unpleasing grouts on the floor of your home. You only need vinegar, baking soda and effort to clean them up. Although the grouts can be cleaned, make sure you don’t wait until it gets worse because that will require more effort to clean.
Originally posted 2020-11-29 11:10:12.
