Quarry /encaustic tiles how to clean/seal?

never_enough

I have quarry & encaustic tiles that are both in need of something more than the hoover & mopping that they get at the mo. The quarry tiles are the usual red, plus a permanently dirty looking dark yellow. I'd really like to get them clean with some magic potion, then seal them in their pristine glory, but is that unrealistic? The encaustic ones look much cleaner, but they don't shine as some peoples do. Any ideas/suggestions? Or do I just need to scrub them more frequently?!

Debt_Free_Chick

How old are they? If they're 100 years + you're unlikely to get them to look "pristine". Encaustic/quarry tiles are porous and there will simply be some ingrained grubbiness

There are a number of specialist cleaners like Lithofin, but I've always got down on my hands & knees with a diluted general purpose cleaner and a scrubbing brush :eek: sometimes a capful of bleach can work wonders.

As for sealing, HG Golv-polish is probably the one recommended most.

Canucklehead

Hi

You could try here.I'm sure they would respond to an 'e' mail.http://www.cravendunnill-jackfield.co.uk/index.html

H.T.H

Corgi Guy.

Debt_Free_Chick

Great site, Canucklehead!

never_enough

Debt_Free_Chick wrote:

How old are they? If they're 100 years + you're unlikely to get them to look "pristine". Encaustic/quarry tiles are porous and there will simply be some ingrained grubbiness

There are a number of specialist cleaners like Lithofin, but I've always got down on my hands & knees with a diluted general purpose cleaner and a scrubbing brush :eek: sometimes a capful of bleach can work wonders.

As for sealing, HG Golv-polish is probably the one recommended most.

Thanks for info.
They're about 80 years old. Pristine was probably a little OTT, but vaguely clean looking would be nice :rolleyes: , even after a spell of scrubbing they still look grubby! I use gp cleaner (flash type stuff) but I'll give the bleach a go before I move on to anything else.