Cleaning Bathroom Tile Mold

by HomeRepairExpert.com

Clean bathroom tile is beautiful, but you must keep the mold off.
Cleaning mold from bathroom tile is critical to keeping your house safe and healthy for your family. However, many people do not know how to remove mold so that it does not come back. In order to clean your bathroom tile effectively, you must consider the factors that contribute to the mold growth.

Mold Growth

The presence of mold indicates excess moisture. This may be caused by lingering humidity after you shower, or it may be a result of not wiping down the shower walls when you are done. In some cases, you may have a larger problem that you will have to resolve in order to get rid of the mold completely.

Killing the Mold

Before you remove the mold, you need to make sure it's dead. The cleaning process can release spores into the air that will spread to other places in your bathroom and your home. Use a mixture of half bleach and half white vinegar to kill the mold. Spray this mixture, or lay saturated paper towels onto the tiles to let the mold really soak up the solution before you clean. Mildewcides and moldicides also work, but these chemicals are unnecessarily harsh and may damage your tile as well as the environment.

Cleaning the Tiles

The bleach and vinegar will kill the mold on contact, but to help with stain removal, let the solution sit on the area for about 10 minutes. Generally, mold will wipe off tile using a cleaning rag and additional solution. In places where the mold appears to have stained the tile, try an application of baking soda to gently scrub off the stain. Sometimes, you will need to apply another dose of vinegar if the mold is actually in a hard water stain. The vinegar will break down the hard water residue and you will be able to scrub the mold off with the mineral deposit.

Grout

When mold gets on bathroom tiles, it generally permeates the grout as well. Grout will be harder to clean than the tiles themselves. Use a good, stiff scrub brush to scrub the grout with the bleach-vinegar solution. Only use a wire brush if you can be confident it will not come into contact with the tiles; wire brushes will scratch and ruin tiles. Once you have scrubbed off as much of the mold as you can, you will be left with mold stains in the grout. These can be removed over time using straight chlorine bleach, but you will have to apply the bleach carefully and repeatedly over a period of weeks or even months before the stains are completely gone.

Warning

While most of these chemicals are green, they can cause health issues if inhaled. Work in a well-ventilated area, as stirring up the mold can also cause respiratory problems. Be sure to wear gloves because bleach and other cleaners can damage the skin on your hands and discolor jewelry. Keep all cleaning solutions out of your eyes.


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Ceramic Tile Image by Karin Lau From Fotolia.com


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