we’re regrouting a restaurant kitchen floor where acids (created by food breaking down in standing water – yuck) have eaten away the old grout. anyone with experience and tips for this application?
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Degrease-Degrease, and when you think you've got it all? Degrease-degrease.
DW is a Chef and has a bee up her butt about the grout lines in the kitchen. Please make sure that the grout ends up even with the tile. Some morron left the grout 1/4" below the tile and it now collects everything. Hense "Grout line Tuesdays".
Other than that. The epoxy grout is a pain to work with but gives a good result especially for the application you need.
How much time do you have before the kitchen staff return?
on our first run (250 square feet), we spent 2 hours scrubbing grout joints with ZEP degreaser, rinsing, and vaccing water from tile joints.
started as soon as staff left (10:30 pm), prepped (as described) for 2 hours, and covered 250 square feet (spot repairs) by 3:30 am. covered with plastic. restaurant staff first shows up at 7:00 am. restaurant opens at 10:00 am.
what we learned was to hesitate a little before using the scrubbing pads (we didn't want the epoxy to set too hard on the tile surface and prematurely wiped the first area treated). on the next area (once set to the point that my "scrubber guy" was afraid that he wouldn't be able to remove the grout), we cast a bucket of water over the area, scrubbed with pads, and cleaned up with sponges. went great. then we reverted back to our bad habits (we were running short on time and tried to do too much at once. what can i say. we were on our last legs after working a full day on a condo conversion). we won't repeat that mistake.
the second thing that we learned was to apply epoxy fortified grout with a plastic trowel (or maybe a grout bag), not a grout float. the float applies too much material over the adjacent surfaces unnecessarily, leaving more material to clean up.
"epoxy-fortified" because the epoxy is not premixed in the grout. a Custom brand two part epoxy additive is mixed together and the specified amount of regular grout is added, then mixed. no water.
brian :-)>
Brian, is your epoxy just clear? The grout is actually being used as a coloring agent & bulk? The cement isn't doing anything with no water in the mix.
What's the brand name & what kind of price? Joe H
it's white when mixed. made by Custom, i believe (same manufacturer as the grout). instructions do not call for H2O.
$75 for epoxy A & B, packaged, in a bucket (enough for one bag of grout) and the grout. enough to cover 1000 sq. ft. grout repair, 200 - 250 sq ft new install.
brian
FWIW
There is no point in changing now but I use C cure's epoxy grout. I use it mainly due to the ease of mixing. They do have one version that requires mixing in some silica powder and it a tedious process to get it thoroughly mixed. Most of their epoxies are just part A and a much smaller catalyst/color part B. It is a breeze to mix up.
Karl
karl,
of course there's a point in changing when faced with alternatives of "like a breeze" vs. unnecessarily difficult. this is just one restaurant out of a chain of 44 in the san diego county area. out of deferrence to our new client, i'm not mentioning names because of my blatant description of food stuff left on the floor with standing water. apparently not important to anyone in the restaurant business - owners, inspectors, or raters (A-rated restaurant). maybe because food eaten doesn't make contact with the floor ;-)
brian
Brian, Glad to hear you may be able to make use of the info in the future. The only color of c cure epoxy that requires a silica powder is there ultra white grout. They do have at least one other white (dover white) that offers the ease of mixing. They have a wide range of other colors availible in the easy mix format.
You might check with some tile setters in the john bridge forum to see if they have any thing to say about c cure. I use it in granite installations so the grout lines are very minimal compared to what you might run into with a tile floor. Ultimately ease of clean up counts for more than ease of mixing.
Karl
i checked out the web site last night and registered.
thanx alot
What brand of grout is this? Is it epoxy or epoxy fortified? I ask because I have not heard of an epoxy fortified grout before.
In any case, you "should" remove half of the existing grout before re-grouting, or as much as you have to to reach sound grout. Epoxy grouts are no picnic to use, so you may want to do a small test area first.