Cleaning Mosaic Tile Grout

Video Transcript

"You need to wait about five to ten minutes for your grout to dry before you start cleaning it off. You'll know it's ready to clean because it becomes dry on the surface of all your tiles. You can usually tell just with your fingers. If it's still a little bit moist, wait until it's dry on all the tiles. Then you'll take a cellulose sponge, this is one of these yellow sponges, you get it wet but not soaking wet, wring it out just so it's damp, and you lightly brush the excess grout off the surface of the tiles. You won't get it perfectly clean, that'll happen in the next step. But you're already beginning to see what your finished product is going to look like. Some people prefer to do two wet washes before they do their final dry wash, but other people just do one. Today we're just going to do one. So after you've done one wet wash, you're going to wait until the grout drys again on the surface of all the tiles and that's when you know you're ready for the final wipe up. You take a dry rag, this is just an old pair of sweat pants, and you lightly just wipe all the dry grout off the surface of the tile. If you do this before the grout's dry, it'll just haze over again, and you can clean it again in five or ten minutes. But that is looking wonderful. It wipes right off the mirror too. But some people like to use blue tape to tape up their mirrors before they grout, and that's something you may want to think about doing as well. Please note with your grout, right here we have our water that we used for the washing process and there is grout mix in that water. So if you dump it down your drain, it's just going to clog your drain. So what you need to do is let it settle for a while. When all the grout is settled on the bottom, you can dump the water off the top. Outside drains are probably best, but industrial drains also work. And then with all the residue on the bottom, you can just scoop that up and throw it away. That'll save your drains and make clean up a whole lot easier for you. Please reference the instructions on your box of grout for proper disposal. Other than that, you just need to clean up your work space and here you are. Congratulations, you're now a mosaic artist."