7 Tips to Balance Your Tile Floor Mopping Budget
Regularly cleaning your tile floor is essential to extending its lifetime and getting the most out of your investment. However, between grout cleanings, mopping, vacuuming, and scrubbing, maintaining that tile floor can not only feel like a tremendous chore, but it can be downright expensive.
In order to help you enjoy your tile floor for many years to come without breaking the bank, here are 7 helpful tips for balancing your tile floor mopping budget.
1.The Best Cleaning Products for Tile Floors are actually Very Inexpensive
Floor cleaning experts recommend just four simple ingredients you probably already have in your home for getting your tile floors sparkling clean. All you need are the following added to water in order to save money and make those floors sparkle:
- Vinegar
- Scouring Powder (non-abrasive combination of borax, salt, and baking soda)
- Dish Detergent (such as Dawn)
- Warm Water
You can also use these ready-made products as they do an exceptional job at cleaning tile, though they may cost you a bit more depending on what you choose:
- ZEP
- Aqua Mix
- Magic
- Tech
- Maintex
2.Clean Your Floor Regularly for Best Results
The longer you wait to clean your tile flooring, the harsher the chemicals you need to get dirt and grime off the tiling and grout. Heavy duty tile cleaners are more expensive, so if you clean regularly with your inexpensive or homemade cleaner, you will also save money.
More importantly, you will also save yourself a lot of time on your hands and knees scrubbing dirt and debris out of your tile floor. Here are the task you will want to do daily or weekly in order to keep your floors from getting too out of hand:
3.Sweep Daily With a Dust Mop or Hard Floor Vacuum
Straw brooms can scratch your tiles even with gentle sweeping, so use something along the lines of a Swiffer mop or a vacuum designed for cleaning hardwood and tile floors to get the dust and grit off the floor. Dirt and debris scratch tiles if not cleaned up, and they can permanently dull glazed tiling over time. According to Gearko upright vacuum is best for hard or tile floors.
4.Mop Once a week with Warm Water
A once a week mopping with just clean warm water can make your floors look shiny in no time, and it helps to remove dirt, dust, and debris that can cause scratching or dulling. Additionally, be sure to sweep up before mopping so as not to push grit and debris around with the mop over your tiles.
5.Dry the Floor Immediately After Mopping
Leaving water pooled on the floor after mopping can cause stains in certain types of tile, so it is important to dry everything up right away to prevent additional work and expense getting those stains up later. Moreover, excess water on a tile floor is a safety hazard for slip-and-fall accidents.
6.Always Wipe up Spills Right Away
Use absorbent cloths or soft paper towels to clean up any kitchen or beverage spills. If any liquid is left to set on certain types of tile, it can take just minutes for it to set into a stain. Save yourself a lot of time and scrubbing later and get spills up as soon as possible..
7.Deep Clean Your Tile Every Few Months
Tile floor looking a bit grimy even with regular cleaning? Time to break out the “big guns”. Here are a few deep-cleaning methods and mixtures to get grease and stains up without doing permanent damage to your tiling:
- Mop with a ½ cup of white vinegar in a bucket of warm water. The acidity of the vinegar breaks up grease, so this method is best used in the kitchen where grease is most likely to get onto the tiles or into the grout.
- Use fresh water and plain dish detergent with a mop to get up tough grease spots.
- Spot-clean stains using a combination of 1 part scouring powder and 1 part warm water (a 50/50 mix is best). Spread your stain mix with a clean cloth and allow it to sit for 5-10 minutes. Next, scrub with a soft brush and rinse the tile with warm water and cleaning cloth. This may take a few repetitions to fully remove some stains.
An important note: vinegar and certain other floor cleaners can erode natural stone tiles, so ensure that you only use pH neutral cleaners on stone tile floors. Gentle formula dish soap, baking soda, cornstarch, and hydrogen peroxide all make good and inexpensive cleaning options for natural stone tiles.
You may also want to consider purchasing a home steam cleaner for getting even the most stubborn grease and spill stains off of tile flooring, as it is both gentle and extremely effective.
Following these easy tips for keeping your tile floors clean without spending a fortune will ensure that you enjoy your tile floors in pristine condition for many years to come. Remember that a regular maintenance routine with inexpensive cleaners is the best way to save money on more expensive and time consuming cleaning later. Do the light work now, and save yourself from the expensive heavy work later.
