Caution Porcelain Tiles

I agree with buildingagain; it's the tilers job to lay the tiles, apply the grout and clean up. Anything less than that is a poor job.

Can you imagine if a builder build a brick house and got the owner to acid clean the bricks!

Polished porcelains are the easiest when it comes to installing grout there should never ever be a problem with grout haze. In saying that if you have a cheap china import than yes but it may not be the grout haze you are seeing.

Craig

Sorry to bring up an old tread, but just wondering how you would know if you have a cheap china import? We bought our tiles from Odin Ceramics in Perth which are supposed to be quite a reputable tile shop. We got a great discount as hubby knows the owners. How do I know if the haze on my tiles is China haze/grout haze/crap tiles/wax coating????

This is seriously driving me crazy

The only way to tell is to have a look at the box the tiles came in, if there are any still left behind as most tilers throw the boxes away, you can also ask the tile shop they should have a record of where they came from.

Craig

The only way to tell is to have a look at the box the tiles came in, if there are any still left behind as most tilers throw the boxes away, you can also ask the tile shop they should have a record of where they came from.

Craig

Ok I had a look on the box, it says "always clean any adhesive grout and wax from the surface of the tiles. Assuming this means that they do have a wax coating, what can I use to get rid of it? Something from Bunnings would be great

Also, its like I can see circular buff marks on all of my tiles... What is this? Can it be removed?

Hi Bec

The box should say on it where the tiles came from or have a look on the back of a spare tile it may have what country it came from stamped on the back.

If it is wax than you should get yourself some porcelain creme cleanser from this website.

http://spiritsealers.com/product.php?idProduct=4

Craig

I agree ... seems bizarre to me that our house was handed over and then we had to find someone to clean the wax off the tiles - but we got a great price of $600 for cash!! Now we just have to fix the grout which was not finished properly either ...

I agree ... seems bizarre to me that our house was handed over and then we had to find someone to clean the wax off the tiles - but we got a great price of $600 for cash!! Now we just have to fix the grout which was not finished properly either ...

If it has no orgin marked you can bet it's Chinese.
Cheers

tile shops are telling us that the quality of porcelain tiles have improved in last year and they don't need to be sealed as they are factory sealed now and don't have haze any more. Is that true?

This reads as if they linked the quality of the tile directly to the tile being pre-sealed or not. I didn't think there was a direct dependency - I thought that SOME non-sealed tiles can still be of better quality than SOME pre-sealed ones.

Then it seems that they linked sealing with hazing - ie. that pre-sealed tiles do not have the optical hazing
I didn't think there was a direct dependency here either ... I thought that hazing can occur regardless of the tile being factory sealed or not.

But that's just my understanding, I'm sure you'll now get a few more responses

Our tiles are Chinese
I think they are of excellent quality. No size issues, no hazing.
The only minus I found so far is a 'built-in' particle of dust/dirt in one of the tiles. But the tiler should have spotted that and used the tile for cutting

hi lex - is your tile polished porcelain? did u seal after laying?

Hi CC, sorry, I haven't been on h1 for a while

Yes, they are just the common polished porcelain tiles, not the exy ones. Apparently pre-sealed (or so they told me after digging around for that info! )

Hi All.

Just wanted to ask, has anyone that's built with 300x600 Porcelain tiles with a matte finish? If so, did you need to seal them due to marks behind left? Eg, a mop bucket circle on the tiles?
National Tiles say that the supplier says sealing isn't needed and I'm not sure if these marks are due to cement residue and just need some more cleaning. Your help is appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Hi Doreen

Matt finish tiles are very hard to maintain specially to clean of marks, you can not need to seal them as the sealer will not penertrate much at all and if you apply a coating sealer (wet look) it will wear off in no time. You will need to use a high alkaline tile cleaner first than rinse rinse as much as you can.

Craig

Great thread, so much info here.

Thanks, Grout Perfect.
I have polished porc too, and I think it's from China. They installed it in my laundry at this stage.
Will try to get the sample today to test it.

did anyone seal porcelain tiles or grout? what sealer did you use?