Tips for Routine Inspections to Prevent Major and Costly Repairs
Have you inspected your bathroom lately? Grout Rescue CT would like to suggest that with every change of season you take time to carefully check your bathrooms. Check your tub, your shower, your tile floors, your toilet and your sink. Fogel, who has been repairing bathrooms professionally for almost a decade, says there is no reason for catastrophic problems to arise. Most issues can be avoided with a little preventive maintenance. Just follow these simple steps to inspect your tub, shower walls, shower floor, tile floor, tile walls, and the area around your toilet and sink (splashboard and caulking around the sink area).
1. First step: grab a flashlight and a toothpick. Get down on your hands and knees and get a really good, eye level, close-up look at the grout (the fill between the tiles). Do you see any discoloration? Do you see any tiny holes? Do you see any larger sections actually missing grout? Discoloration shows signs of mold and into your walls, pooling, rotting wood and working its way into the ceiling of the floor below. If you have a tile floor, check the grout between those tiles too. Plenty of water from bathing, the sink, and cleaning the floors can get into mildew and they eventually will eat through the grout. Tiny holes lead to bigger holes. Take that toothpick and see how big those holes really are. Between those holes and any missing chunks, water is taking the opportunity to get those open spaces if they aren’t repaired.
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2. Second step: use the flashlight to carefully inspect the caulk (all the seams where the walls meet, the tub and walls meet, the soap dishes and shelves are sealed). Check the caulk behind the sink, around the base of the toilet. Do you see any discoloration? Are there cracked, bubbles, it the caulk buckled, broken or peeling? If so, this is another area where water seeps into your walls and floor causing mold and rot inside the walls and floors (be sure to check the caulk where the tub meets the floor outside the tub itself).
3. Third step: use your finger to lightly tap on each of the tiles. Are they all firmly set? Do any move when you touch them? Your tiles need to be firmly in place to ensure that your tub, shower, floor, sink, and toilet area are sound. Take extra care to inspect the tiles, caulk and grout around the toilet area. Make sure that there is no sign of a slow leak from the toilet bowl or pipes that is causing damage to the floor. This is one area that often goes unchecked for months until water damage is detected with large water stains appearing on the ceiling in the room below. Then you have a huge problem on your hands.
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4. Fourth step: if you have a shower, take a close look up at the shower head. Do you have white, green or pink build up blocking the openings of the shower head? Cleaning your shower head is easy and makes your showering process so much healthier for you and your family. You can even clean it without chemicals by soaking it in a bowl full of white vinegar to remove the calcium building. Take a soft bristle brush and clean off any build up and wipe down any mold or mildew.
5. Fifth Step: If you have a shower door, make sure the track is clean. Check to make sure the seal is good and there is no mold or mildew build up. Look for holes and gaps where water could be running out onto the floor, and leaking into the floor, rotting floor boards, seeping into the ceiling below.
6. Sixth Step: if you have found grout, caulk and tile problems, tackle them immediately. Don’t let them get worse.
· Ask a professional at the hardware store to help you select the right products to do the repairs. Remember that there are MANY different colors of grout and caulk and make sure you match your existing color.
· There are lots of videos on YouTube that can help you do simple repairs. Check them out and make sure you find the ones that have been made by someone who knows what they are doing.
· If you find something that you aren’t comfortable fixing on your own, call a professional. Grout Rescue CT gives free evaluations, consultations, and quotes. One phone call to 203-227-4048 can help you decide what really needs to be done to save you potentially thousands of dollars in repairs by leaving the small problems to deal with until they become big problems.
Regular cleaning ensures that you will have a mold and mildew free, healthy environment for you and your family. Routine inspection makes sure small problems won’t grow to give you massive headaches by causing major damage to your home. And with a little preventive maintenance you can potentially save thousands of dollars in repairs.
If you live in Fairfield County, call Grout Rescue CT at 203-227-4048 or send an email to Richard@GroutRescueCT.com to set up and appointment for an in home visit for a personalized quote. You and your family will be glad you did. If you want, once we complete a job, we will even give you hints and tips on how to keep your tile, grout and caulk clean and looking like new for even longer.
2013 © Grout Rescue CT, Article distributed by Grout Rescue CT, November 2013
Grout Rescue CT, 203-227-4048, www.GroutRescutCT.com
