new shower base, mould and bleach

terry2

We've just had a new shower unit fitted in our shower room. The new shower tray says not to use bleach on it. Unfortunately we get mould occurring on the grout between the tiles in the shower cubicle, and in the past my wife has used bleach in order to remove the mould.

So do you know of any way of removing mould from tile grout that does not involve bleach?

andyhop

A decent quality grout from Mapei Or Bal, A decent high flow extractor fan from Vent Axia or Xpelair, Decent silicone from Dow Corning Or Mapei and you will not have mould issues

The correct materials and getting rid of steam/moisture will save the need to scrub your tiles and grout

I have seen folk use cillit bang and it takes the colour out of grout, tiles and the suite.Im sure a weak soloution of cheap bleach will not effect the tray too much, just give it a good rinse when done

McKneff

Just a tip, every time you have a shower, squeegy it, only takes a couple of minutes and worth the effort in the long run.

googler

You're getting the mould because the grout is being left wet after a shower, there's too much moisture in the air, or a combination of both.

As previously said, a good quality extractor fan takes care of the air.

When you've had a shower, either squeegee, as suggested above, or keep an old towel in the bathroom to run over the tiles / silicone sealant lines after you're done.

andyhop

We always leave our customers microfibre cloths. Takes less than 10 secs to wipe over the average shower /bath area and dry off

terry2

andyhop wrote: »

A decent quality grout from Mapei Or Bal, A decent high flow extractor fan from Vent Axia or Xpelair, Decent silicone from Dow Corning Or Mapei and you will not have mould issues

The correct materials and getting rid of steam/moisture will save the need to scrub your tiles and grout

Well, the extractor fan is supposed to be a high flow one, but I will check it. What flow rate would you consider to be the minimum that we should have? Are you also suggesting we should have the room re-grouted?

Thanks to all the people with suggestions for drying the tiling.

My wife does try to dry things but the mould still keeps appearing (note only the shower enclosure is new, the tiled shower room is many years old). So back to the original question:- do you know of any way of removing mould from tile grout that does not involve bleach?

jc808

can you seal the grout?

dld2s

A proprietary fungicide cleaner maybe,some of them claim to be safer than bleach

Have you tried vinegar, my wife bought a book about uses for it and seemingly vinegar can treat a wide range of moulds ( I used this on some mould we had, wasn't a lot of mould , but seemed to be as succesful as bleach, couuldn't tell you how long term it would have lasted as we used a specialist paint to solve the problem several weeks later, or maybe it was the vinegar that solved the problem and not the paint )

I came across this site when I was looking for something to kill mould and bookmarked it(it also mentions vinegar further down the page) it's one of those sites that tell you what to use for non toxic cleaning, I havent used the other items they mention for cleaning mould so cant say if they work or not.
http://www.elc.org.uk/pages/envirocleaninghtm.htm

terry2

jc808 wrote: »

can you seal the grout?

Sorry, I don't understand, can you explain how you would seal grout?

dld2s

put "sealing grout" into google, theres loads of advice on how to seal the grouting

heres a ling to one site http://www.onlinetips.org/grout-sealant

andyhop

Universal sealers do a grout sealer. Can be bought from CTD tiles for under £20 per spray can

We have been using for about a year and it does work, repels water like glass