United Tile: Design Gallery - TT007 grout concerns

TILE TIPS
are you concerned about grout?

WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT?
While tile is rapidly growing in favor by homeowners, you may have heard stories of concern about maintaining grout.

Is there an answer? . . . YES! As a matter of fact there are several:

Use Laticrete SP-100 Stainless Epoxy Grout
This 100% solids epoxy grout virtually eliminates the maintenance issue. As the name suggests, it is stainless, never needs sealing, is uniform in color and exceeds the industry standards (ANSI A118.3) for chemical resistance and cleanability.
Seal the grout with a good penetrating sealer
While cement grouts have not changed much over the years, the sealers have. Application of a good penetrating sealer provides a barrier that makes maintenance much easier. A word of caution: This is not an area to compromise on quality. Insist on proven, high-quality penetrating sealers such as Aqua Mix’s “Sealers Choice Gold” or Miracle Sealant’s “Porous Plus”.
Use larger tiles
No, we haven’t switched the subject. We are still talking about minimizing grout concerns. Larger size tiles dramatically reduce the amount of grout to be maintained. Here are examples of how much less grout you need with larger tiles:

Floor: An 8x8 tile requires twice as much grout as does the 16x16 size
Wall: It takes nearly one and a half times as much grout to install a 4¼x4¼ tile as it does to install a large format (8x12 or 8x13) tile.

Install with tighter grout joints
Tiles made to exacting specifications permit installation with minimal grout joints. We highly recommend wall tile from Porcelanosa-Venis for this type an installation. Also consider “rectified” tiles that are ground to be perfectly square.
Summary
Many of the previous complaints about grout came from an era when current alternatives were not available. Your installation does not need to have the maintenance problems your parents may have experienced.