Need a mop that will do really grubby natural stone tiles!

[Llamasally]

Have been through 3 varieties of vileda, steam mop has now given up. The grout is grotty and discoloured unless I get on my hands and knees with a scrubbing brush and the HG grout cleaner. It’s really obvious the areas that are high traffic compared to the lovely clean, new looking areas.

I think I need something more ‘bristly’ and that maybe rotates to scrub all the muck off, but it must be suitable for unsealed stone. Anyone any ideas?? TIA

A soft headed sweeping brush does a good job.

Use a damp mop to scrub Cif into the grout. Leave a while and rinse off.

Is it a stone floor with ivory grout? I did this when I renovated my house. I will NEVER do it again - will always choose sand and stone grout or a dark grey grout.. However, I never did find anything that would get the grout back apart from hands and knees with a steam cleaner with the small stiff brush attachment and neat bleach. It worked and to maintain I used a old fashioned mop head rather than a vileda type. If you look on amazon you can buy products to "seal" the grout once it is cleaned. This might help with longer term maintenance.

@SpeckledlyHen yes and yes 😞 it looked so nice…

Has anyone tried one of the new Shark scrub and steam??

I have something similar and the only thing that works is dipping a (sweeping) brush into a bucket with a little water and fairy liquid. Scrub it on, leave it then mop it off.

Watching with interest. I have a slate floor with cream grout (big mistake) and it looks grubby within hours of scrubbing it with bleach. Steam mops, in my experience, are useless as they just swish grubby soap-suds into the grout.

Ooh ooh I have the solution to all your woes. I've been researching electric mops for ages but none of them seemed high powered enough to risk the high costs. The best one seemed to be by a small Brit company called Aircraft but again, not quite high powered enough for my rough tiles - but the. I saw they have a sort of electric scrubber with a flat stuff bristled brush head called the PowerScrub. Reviews were fab and I wanted one so badly I asked dh to get it for me for Xmas (so I wouldn't feel so guilty if it was a duff buy). He refused to get me a mop as a present (!) so we brought it anyway and it is fantastic. All the grout in my bathroom floor is back to new. Im slightly obsessed with Labour saving appliances but I am always disappointed- but now I am living the dream

It really has a lot of power - that means it works, but you therefore have to hold it quite firmly or it skitters around so it's not really suitable as a regular mop - and to get the grout back to new you need to hover back and forth a few times but to clean impossible things it's amazing. I think the Aircraft Powerscrub in combo with the Vileda magic mop which gets deeper into low lying grout than any of three others and has good friction

If I had nice flat tiles or well sealed wood I would be gasping to try their two-head Powerglide mop - they're flat microfibre heads for more regular cleaning. I'm still tempted!

Wow @WinterDeWinter that looks perfect 👍

Oh good - I have been bursting to tell someone but IRL people would think I was deranged I think!

(Although reading my post back, I do sound deranged - was trying to edit on the phone and buggered it up..)

@LilyTheSavage there are electric things around that don't have as much oomph as the AirCraft PowerScrub - basically are microfibre cloths on heads that spin, a bit like an old fashioned floor polisher - but which have a vacuum function and suck up the dirty water. Might be worth exploring? Things to look out for are size of the tank ie. would you have to keep emptying it, and - argh, something else, can't remember... maybe battery life?

@WinterDeWinter - thank you so much. I haven't even heard of these things. Do you happen to know who stock them please? I will JFGI but a personal recommendation is always helpful.

This Vax one looked pretty good if you mean the mop-and-suck things - there's also one from Samsung and one which was maybe a bit cheaper from Bissell. I think they're generally referred to as 'hard floor cleaners' which is why so few people have heard of them - you google 'electric mop' if you google anything at all!

If you mean the AirCraft PowerScrub, I bought it from AirCraft direct and it arrived v quickly with £50 off RRP. I think John Lewis sells them now too. By all accounts their customer service is amazing - I think it's a Dyson-in-the-making type company that's still at the stage of being one inventor guy doing everything, including responding within half an hour to queries!

Another grubby store floor owner here so just googled this machine. Think I might have to get one .... looks perfect.

@WinterDeWinter

Ooh ooh I have the solution to all your woes. I've been researching electric mops for ages but none of them seemed high powered enough to risk the high costs. The best one seemed to be by a small Brit company called Aircraft but again, not quite high powered enough for my rough tiles - but the. I saw they have a sort of electric scrubber with a flat stuff bristled brush head called the PowerScrub. Reviews were fab and I wanted one so badly I asked dh to get it for me for Xmas (so I wouldn't feel so guilty if it was a duff buy). He refused to get me a mop as a present (!) so we brought it anyway and it is fantastic. All the grout in my bathroom floor is back to new. Im slightly obsessed with Labour saving appliances but I am always disappointed- but now I am living the dream

It really has a lot of power - that means it works, but you therefore have to hold it quite firmly or it skitters around so it's not really suitable as a regular mop - and to get the grout back to new you need to hover back and forth a few times but to clean impossible things it's amazing. I think the Aircraft Powerscrub in combo with the Vileda magic mop which gets deeper into low lying grout than any of three others and has good friction

If I had nice flat tiles or well sealed wood I would be gasping to try their two-head Powerglide mop - they're flat microfibre heads for more regular cleaning. I'm still tempted!

Thank you so much for this, we have slightly textured laminate which is an absolute bastard to clean, I’ve been on my hands and knees with a scrubbing brush swearing! I’m definitely getting this! I feel the pain of dirty grout, we also went for cream grout in the lounge, bad error! I can’t wait to try it!

@WinterDeWinter - thank you so much. I think some research and then shopping is the way ahead. Really helpful to know what they are called.

I’ve just bought the Powerscrub, was stupidly staring at the other Aircraft heads wondering how microfibres cloths would clean the grout. Duh, I’ve got covid and it’s made me really sick/woozy. I cannot wait to try this! It comes with a microfibre head too, hoping this will replace all other mops so I can get rid of the others!

@WinterDeWinter. Review time!

It arrived this afternoon. I’ve done about a 5th of the kitchen-slightly grooved karndean type laminate which I’ve previously scrubbed, hands and knees, proper scrubbing brush, nothing else has worked. This machine is miraculous! However, I need to precede with then follow up with a microfibre mop to spray on water/cleaner then mop off the sheer filth that results (loving it!) My back is killing, tho, I’m tall and the handle isn’t long enough and I would love something with more industrial sized heads because this machine is the absolute nuts! It doesn’t help that the kitchen is 10x20. I am a shit housewife and I have 3 dogs that have constant access to the garden, so the dirt is to be expected. I reckon if I cleaned the floor once a week, this would be perfect and I could buff the rest of the time.

I’ve tried it on tiling grout/tiles and it’s amazing. Thank you so much for the recommendation!

I got it too @Cherrysoup @WinterDeWinter, it’s brilliant! Disproportionately happy about a cleaning item. I’m now eyeing up a Roomba in my quest for clean and efficient!

Yay - I forgot about this thread until today! I blew my PowerScrub up by using the wrong charger - customer service has been absolutely brilliant and they are sending me a new one (even though very much my fault). I'm so pleased that you liked it @Llamasally and @Cherrysoup. I can't think of another time that I've been evangelical about a product enough to post about it but it really is ace. So satisfying 😁