• Chemical free cleaning

The only thing required for steam cleaning your home is water, which is heated to high enough temperatures to create steam. This is why this type of cleaning method is eco friendly and it does not leave any chemical residues.

• Cleans, sanitises and deodorises

When steam cleaning is done properly using the correct equipment it kills more than 99% of bacteria, germs and dust mites, as well as moulds and other things. Keep in mind that water needs to be heated to 175 degrees in order for it to sanitize your home effectively. Steam mopping equipment should heat the water to this temperature or higher (212 degrees is the temperature that is required to create steam that kills bacteria, germs and dust mites). Furthermore, using a steam cleaning machine helps to loosen dirt and stains, as well as grease and grime, and will help remove odours from mattresses, carpets and upholstery.

• Effective Cleaning

Because it uses extremely high temperatures steam cleaning is an effective cleaner and sanitizer. It can be used to clean both indoors and outdoors and on any hard or soft surface, from floor to ceiling.  For areas that are mopped daily, using hot steam offers a more effective clean than chemical cleaners.

• Kills Dust Mites

Dust mites are little creatures that live in your mattress, carpets and upholstery and feed on the dead skin flakes that humans and pets shed. These creatures leave behind their faecal matter which is a common allergen and trigger of asthma. Floor steam cleaners can be used to kill the creatures and then a quick vacuum will remove any debris left behind.

As you can see using steam vacuum cleaners on upholstery, carpets and mattresses whether on your own or through hiring steam cleaning services, will go a long way towards cleaning and sanitising your home. Next time you think about ways to clean your home, steam clean it for the most hygienic and environmentally friendly clean.

Dave Tucker is a freelance writer with a keen interest in being environmentally conscientous.

The first line of defense for a carpet is at the entrances from the outside. Door mats are designed to remove dirt, debris, and moisture from shoe bottoms. Teach your family to actually wipe their shoes on the mat a couple of times. Wash the mat every week or two to remove buildup.

If possible, minimize the amount of direct sunlight that gets on your carpet, because the color of the carpet can fade if exposed to constant, strong light. If the room is unusually humid, consider a dehumidifier, because excess moisture can be a breeding ground for mildew over a period of time.

Vacuum regularly, to prevent dust buildup. This is possibly the most important maintenance tool for your carpet. Experts have reported that nearly 80 percent of carpet dirt is removed by a vacuum. Vacuum at least twice a week to prevent soil particulates from working below the carpet surface. It’s not only important to vacuum regularly, but to do it thoroughly. Use slow, steady passes of the vacuum in the direction of the fiber. Also, after spending the money on a new house, don’t skimp on cleaning tools. Invest in a good vacuum with optimal suction. The extra couple of hundred dollars you spend will be easily recouped by the extended life of your carpet.

To protect the fibers themselves, use carpet protectors—those round protectors that look like wooden drink coasters—so that couch and chair legs don’t dig into the fibers and distort them permanently.

Finally, nearly all new carpets are treated with some brand of stain resistor. In most cases, all you will need is a clean cloth and some warm water to remove stains. If that doesn’t work, use the spot cleaner recommended by your carpet manufacturer or by a carpet professional. Not all carpet cleaners are created equal, and some over-the-counter brands can actually make the stain worse. When using a spot cleaner, it is important to apply the product properly, to avoid telltale rings. Moisten a dry white cloth with some cleaner and gently work it into the stain.  Do not pour spot remover directly on the carpet and do not scrub. If the stain still doesn’t come out, call a cleaning professional. Use home remedies at your peril!

With regular care and cleaning, your carpet should stay looking new for years to come. 

If you are interested in learning more about Texas new home builders and new homes in Fort Worth, San Antonio, Houston, and Phoenix, please go to LGIHomes.com

Wooden Floor
Positives:
This type of flooring helps give the room a natural look, and it can work with almost every kind of room (dress it up with a rug?). By using this kind of flooring, you are also helping the environment as a whole as this is a product extracted from controlled forests (which means there’s a quota on how many trees you can cut down). Timber flooring is an extremely hard wearing flooring option and suitable for commercial or domestic applications.

Timber flooring is also advantageous to people who suffer from asthma or other allergies because it doesn’t hold dust in the same manner as say, carpet. One of the main beauties of natural timber flooring is the ability to rejuvenate its stunning look every few years through re-sanding, polishing and sealing. The expansion of the timber flooring market over the past 10 years presents options for consumers to buy imitation timber floors, or laminate (timber look alike) flooring that requires no maintenance and is around 20% of the cost of the authentic solid timber.

Negatives:
Humidity, dampness, and moisture can cause wooden floors to distort and deform. During chilly weather, the wood flooring can feel really cold because it retains the coolness from outside.

Timber is not waterproof so once water seeps into it, it starts to deform. Another disadvantage is that it is not as heavy-duty as ceramics because it usually cannot stand the impact of falling objects. Timber flooring also requires more frequent maintenance than the others.

Ceramic Floor
Positives:
Ceramic tiles have the potential to be extremely appealing and versatile as they come in different colors, shapes, sizes, and finishes. A beautifully laid tile floor can transform the entire home, adding considerable value. And if you’re a DIY handyman, you’ll save around $50 per square metre in labour costs.

A professionally laid ceramic tile installation is by far the most durable flooring option. When choosing your color scheme, we’d suggest to try for a neutral scheme given that the flooring will easily out-last the current decor trend.

Negatives:
Biggest downside is that it is easily chipped or damaged, so be careful when re-locating and dragging furniture. Ceramics can be cold under-foot.

Another big problem with tiles is that over time oil, water, and other liquid residue will gather on the gaps and grout lines between the tiles and de-colorize the tile, or worse, develop bacteria.

Carpet
Positives:
It actually helps your electrical bills as it insulates the house during cold weather.  It also helps reduce the sound, helping out with the noise pollution, too.

Carpet’s biggest advantage is that it is cushioned, very cosy and soft under-foot. It can help reduce the impact of a slip or an accidental fall.

Negatives:
Can affect allergy sufferers, needs replacing more frequently than timber and ceramic tiles, and can be very expensive depending on the quality.

When buying carpet, always store some off-cuts, as carpet can be easily stained, torn or burnt, at which time you’ll need to engage a carpet repair service to restore the effected area. Carpet also has the ability to shrink or expand over time, which also requires further maintenance expenses.

Carpet Brisbane: Offering carpet Brisbane services as well as other areas including carpet Sunshine Coast carpet services.

The best way to make sure your grout is cleaned safely and effectively is to call your local grout cleaning and restoration company. A professional and affordable contractor can restore your grout and tile so that it is looks like it did when your floors, bathrooms and other tiled surfaces were new.

One of the most frequent requests received by contractors is to clean and sanitize all the tiled surfaces in bathrooms of retail and residential locations. Bathrooms are especially tricky since they are damp rooms. Bathrooms also tend to have more tile and grout than any other room in the house. Unfortunately, this gives mold, mildew and fungus the perfect breeding ground. Your grout cleaning professional will use a variety of methods to ensure that your bathroom is cleaned safely and effectively – removing any chance for illness causing mold to build up. 

The best method though is a specialized VAPOR Technology. Steam cleaning restores the original beauty of your shower, floor or counter without the use of hazardous chemicals.

Whether you’ve got tile in your kitchen, bathroom, living room or bedroom, you’ve no doubt noticed that stains can occur on grout quite frequently due to accidental spills. Scrubbing the surface grout – the layer of grout you can see – will not always remove the stain. In some cases, this offers temporary relief, but eventually the stain creeps back up from the bottom layers of grout where it has found a comfortable home. 

For additional help, please call The Grout Medic at 303.99GROUT (303.994.7688) for a Free Evaluation or visit our website at www.groutmedicdenver.com

Is is it time to regrout the tile in your shower, bath tub-surround or walls?

For a fraction of the cost of replacement, the tile in your shower, bath-tub surround and even your bathroom walls can be restored to new again, by a quick and simple regrouting and recaulking!

Is your grout and caulk growing mold, discolored or worse yet cracking and falling out? It might be that regrouting and recaulking, something that can be done in just a day, is exactly what you need!

Many people don’t realize that regrouting and recaulking their shower, bath tub-surround, and bathroom walls can make them look like new again. Your tile doesn’t usually lose its beauty, only the grout and caulk do. If you have been planning on getting new tile in your shower or bathtub surround thinking that it was the only way to remedy ugly grout; you will be very pleasantly surprised to learn that most tile in showers, tub surrounds and on walls can be easily regrouted!

The process to remove the old grout and caulk and replace it with clean, fresh, new grout and caulk is fairly easy, relatively clean, can be done in a day and the results are amazing! You will think the tile was just installed new, all for about 20% of the cost of a new shower, bathtub surround, walls or floor.

Beyond being ugly, there can be serious consequences to grout that is cracked and falling out. This cracked or broken grout easily allows water to leak through. As it leaks into your porous backer material it gets to your studs and causes them to get waterlogged, grow mold and mildew and eventually begin to rot. When that happens there is no longer any support left for the tile and the only way to fix the shower or tub surround is to rip it out and rebuild it from scratch. Needless to this can be quite costly.

In addition to this, when backing material and studs are completely saturated with water, leaks develop as there is nowhere else for the water to go.

By the time this happens, mold and mildew, that love wet places, are bound to have grown. This leads not only to foul odors but is damaging to your health too.

Worse yet, with time, this usually leads to extensive and expensive wall work too before you can install new tile and grout in your shower or bathtub surround. Sounds a bit like a horror story but this is what actually happens. We see it on a weekly basis!

After removing all of the grout surrounding the tiles and cleaning and regrouting, we finish all bathrooms and showers with waterproof silicone.

If you are having any type of problems with your grout or your shower leaking why not call us and we will come by and help you figure out what the problem is and the best way to fix it.

How They Work
Daimer®, a reputable supplier of cleaning equipment, offers steam cleaners that can reach high temperatures up to 386°F. The high temperature output dissolves dirt, stains, and other impurities from hard surfaces, such as tile and grout. Machines such as Daimer®’s KleenJet® 3000CVP feature an attached vacuum for easy removal of liquid debris created during the cleaning process. In addition, the 3000CVP also includes Daimer®’s ATIS® technology for eliminating more than 99 percent of commonly found germs and bacteria.

Tile and Grout Cleaning Dirt and dust accumulate in the joints between tiles. Grout is used to fill the joints and cracks present. These joints require regular cleaning. The ideal cleaning machine for such tasks should be fast and efficient, and should not leave excessive amounts of water behind.

Steam cleaners and their high temperature output dissolve dirt and other impurities quickly and effectively. For example, some steam cleaners feature pressure levels of 110 psi and temperature levels of 349°F for easily cleaning tile and grout in such areas as bathrooms and kitchens.  Some companies use carpet cleaning equipment but this can do damage to grout. Cleaning machines specifically designed to be used with tile and grout should only be used.

For reaping the full range of benefits from steam cleaners, it is recommended to use equipment offered by top-notch distributors or hire professional tile and grout contractors that ONLY use steam cleaners.

For more information lease visit The Grout Medic at www.groutmedicdenver.com

Stachybotrys chartarum (try to say that fast three times) is a fungus commonly known as black mold. This fungus, which can sometimes grow indoors, appears as a greenish-black, slimy growth and spreads relentlessly in your bathroom.

Very few bathrooms escape the dreaded black mold fungus. Sooner or later it finds a nice damp corner of your shower and begins to grow. Slowly at first then before you know it it’s all over your beautiful bathroom.

The bigger it gets the faster it grows. It loves to follow the lines of silicon sealer and grout between ceramic tiles. This moldy pest seems to get inside the silicon sealer even the fungal resistant kind and will turn your lovely bathroom into a dirty pit if you don’t do something about it quickly.

If you are fighting a losing battle against this foe and you have given up, call a professional tile and grout restoration expert. These companies have the right tools and solutions to help you win the fight against mold!

If you found this article helpful and do need a professional to save you, please call The Grout Medic of Denver at 303.99GROUT (303.994.7688) to schedule FREE in home evaluation.

Visit us at www.groutmedicdenver.com

It makes you want to scream like poor Marion Crane in the famous “shower scene” from Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller Psycho with the screeching violins, violas and cellos in the background.

What is that black disgusting growth in your shower?

Is it dangerous to your health and the health of those who shower in there?

Most importantly, how do you get rid of it?

This article will answer the first question and we will answer each subsequent question in a series of articles entitled The Dreaded foe- Black Mold.

Both tiles and the grout between them can accumulate dirt in more than one way. Tiles and grout placed in bathrooms, since they are closely exposed to moisture, are most susceptible to mildew formations. Clean Grout and tiles in kitchens, however, are more apt to get stained through the accumulation of food stains or grime. In both cases, it is neglect that worsens such problems. You must take care to deal with them as soon as humanly possible, because the longer you wait, the harder it will get to get rid of tile and grout stains.

If you’re in search of a tile and grout cleaner, you don’t have to look much further than the kitchen itself. The all-purpose cleaners baking soda and vinegar can be effective on all but the most stubborn of stains. Take note that the use of pure vinegar may be both excessive and expensive; you can use vinegar that has been diluted with water (try a 5:1 ratio of water and vinegar). If you plan to use baking soda, you can try to add a little water to the soda, just enough to make a smooth paste. Use a household cleaning brush to work either mixture into the stained area. After you’re done, rinse the area with water and clean up properly.