The Demolition Process

Remove the existing flooring or tile. If you don’t like the flooring that you have in your bathroom, you might enjoy tearing it out. If you have tile, you’re going to want to use a vibrating chisel, or a small sledgehammer and a flat screwdriver. If you are just pulling up linoleum, make sure that you get it all up and that you clean off the glue residue, before putting down your tiles.

Installing Bathroom Tile

After you have gotten rid of all of the unwanted flooring, you should be left with a level surface when installing bathroom tile. If you have wood underneath for your subflooring, make sure to add a few extra screws to keep the plywood from moving around. If it moves around, it could cause your tiles to pop out of the floor. If you have cement, make sure that it is level and clean before you start putting down your mortar and tiles.


The next step when you are tiling a bathroom floor, is to take a chalk line. Using the length and the width of your room, find the middle of the floor. Most professional tile installers will start installing tile in the middle of the floor, and then work their way to the edges. This helps them to install it straight. The first few tiles that you install are going to be very important because they will dictate how the rest of your tiles will look.

The next thing you want to do is mix your mortar paste in a 5 gallon bucket. Using a float with a quarter inch, or a 1/8 inch wedge, spread the paste evenly on your floor. Use spacers in between the tiles to make sure that they are properly spaced.

When you are learning how to tile a bathroom floor, you never want to walk on it to push it in place. Rather, you just want to slide it into place, and then push on it lightly with your hands. This way, you can make sure that the mortar helps to hold the tiles in place. You want the tiles to be as level as possible. It is okay to go slow, and make sure that everything is even and level. Make sure to use a wet saw to cut any tiles that need to be cut before they are installed.
It should take about 48 to 72 hours for the tile mortar to cure. After they are fully cured, you should use a grout paste to fill in all of the grout lines. After the grout lines have cured, then you’ll want to add a grout sealer as the final step.

Here’s another article you might also like:

*How to Grout Tile

How to Start Marketing Your Grout Cleaning Services

The first thing that you will want to do when you start a tile cleaning business is create a website, and a couple of YouTube videos on the professional services that you offer. Also remember to put your business on Google maps. It works best if you try to keep things focused locally. If you live in Oregon for instance, the title of your YouTube video and your website should contain the words of the major cities that are close to where you live. Also make sure that it contains a good description of what you do. Make sure to include some ‘before and after’ footage just to make your site more credible.

Don’t worry about having the most professional videos right away. You can always upgrade your videos once you start getting customers. The next thing that you need to do for your grout cleaning business is to start advertising locally. You can try placing an ad or two in the newspaper, and make sure that you offer free estimates, as this will encourage more people to call.


My favorite method for attracting customers is to actually go door to door, and either talk to them, or leave a flyer describing the services that you offer. Leaving door flyers is a lot cheaper than sending someone mail. Not only that, it has a higher chance of being read. The other advantage of using door flyers is that it allows you to pick the neighborhoods where you want to work. Usually the middle-class or the upper-middle-class offers you a great opportunity to find customers, without having to spend a ton of money on advertising. Try to stay away from rental neighborhoods, or multimillion dollar homes (because these people are always either working or on vacation). Make sure that you sell people on the fact that you are a professional cleaning company, and that you can save them from having to do the work themselves. In marketing, it is usually a better idea to sell the benefits of the service you are providing, rather than selling the service all by itself.

What Type of Equipment Do You Need in Order to Be Successful

Eventually you’ll want a truck that can mount a hot water pressurized steamer. In addition, you also want a hard floor cleaner. The way that these work is that they pressurize and clean the grout and tile surfaces, and also suck away the water at the same time. This leaves you with a floor that has been steamed and looks really good.

If you’re just starting out, you don’t want to pay $10,000- $20,000 more for equipment and the truck. It is a much better idea for you to buy your equipment used. That way, if your business doesn’t worked out, you can at lease get the money back that you paid for your equipment. Another idea is to start small. Maybe you can buy a portable steaming unit for $200 or $300 and use that. Using a steamer is probably one of the easiest ways to learn how to clean grout. The only disadvantage of doing it that way is that your customers might figure out a way to do the work themselves, and it will still take you longer when you’re using a smaller machine.

How Much Should You Charge per Job?

Never charge by the hour, always charge by the job. It is generally easier for you to make more money this way. You will be able to make more money per job when you have the right equipment. It is worth it to invest in a professional grout steam cleaning machine that would allow you to do the job four or five times faster than trying to clean it by hand. Not only will a professional grout cleaning machine do a better job, but it will make you more money per hour than trying to clean the tile grout lines by hand. To buy a professional grout steaming machine, you are going to be paying about $2,000-$5,000. Still, it is a good investment that you can quickly make back just by the money that you save by having better equipment.

What Other Services Can You Upsell Your Customers to, to Make Even More Money

Believe it or not, most of your customers appreciate it when you offer them an additional service that they know they need to have done. This is why it is a great idea to not only clean the grout, but seal the grout as well. Sometimes you can charge just as much to seal grout as you can to clean it. This will mean that you can make twice as much money per visit when you seal the grout. The materials for grout sealing are relatively inexpensive. Typically a $30-$40 gallon of grout sealant is enough to do just about any job. Your real expenses are going to be the cost of hiring and training your employee to do a good job at it. You should still be able to make money sealing people’s grout. A job that would take your employee two hours to do, you can typically charge up to $300 for.

When you own a tile and grout cleaning business, you don’t have to just stick to cleaning tile. A lot of people who steam clean tile also clean carpets. It just so happened that the same equipment that you can use to steam clean tile and floors, you can use for deep cleaning carpets. By upselling through cleaning carpets in the house, you can turn a $300 job into a $600 job.

Another service that you can offer is complete deep clean for a bathroom, or maybe clean out jet tubs and bathroom spas. This will be another opportunity for you to upsell and make more money off of your customers.

Additional Readings:

You may also be interested to learn about different types of cleaning equipment that you can use when starting a tile cleaning business. Here are some articles that may be helpful to you:

*Tile and Grout Cleaner Tool Review

*Grout Steam Cleaners, Professional Steam Cleaners for Floors, Bathrooms and Tile

Stage I – Demolition of Kitchen Countertops

Most of the time, your kitchen will have old porcelain tiles. If this is the case, you will want to start out by removing all of the existing tiles. The best way to remove these is with a sledgehammer, and a chisel. If you want to do it even faster you should buy or rent a pneumatic chisel. Especially if you have a lot of tile to remove. Hopefully, you’ll find that the cement base that is underneath the tile is still good enough that you can reuse it. If you can reuse it, then you’ll just want to apply new mortar to the top of it, and then install your tiles. If it is in bad condition, or is extremely uneven, you’ll want to tear out the cement, and possibly even replace the plywood that is underneath it. Make sure that you have a flat surface to work on before you start applying the mortar.

Stage II – New Tile Installation

When you’re learning how to install granite tile countertops, you want to start making a dry placement of your tiles. This is kind of exciting things you can see sort of what it will look like when it is done. Plus, once you are ready to begin your new installation, you are halfway done with your project.

When you are placing your granite tiles make sure that you keep in mind that you are going to want them to overlap the edge of the countertop by slightly more than the width of a tile. I think it is a good idea to go ahead and mark all of your lines. It is a good idea to use a chalk line, or a straight edge and a pencil to help you draw these lines. Make sure that when using wet saw it will not overheat or break while you’re using to cut it with. Hiring someone to cut your tile for you might be a good idea, but it will also be expensive. People who cut and polished tile for a living generally charge at least $10 per foot.

Then, find out how much you’re going to need to cut off of all of your tiles in order to get them to fit properly. Please keep in mind that granite is very hard. It may take you a little bit of time to cut through it. Plus, you’re going to need to use a very sharp diamond blade saw in order to do it.

The next step is to make sure to mix your mortar up properly. If you wet your plywood down, before you apply the mortar, it won’t dry as quickly. This is a pretty good suggestion even if you are doing floor tiles. After you have the top of the countertop placed, you want to take the time to polish up the narrow pieces you’re going to use for the bottom edge of your countertop so that they will look finished. In order to do this, you’re going to need to buff the tiles with a powerful floor sander. This video does an excellent job at explaining how to do it. You want to start out with a course grade for sanding and then work your way down to a fine grade. Eventually you will use a buffer to buffer the services and make them shine.

after your mortar is mixed together properly, use float with quarter inch ridges to spread it evenly onto your tiled area. When you are installing your tile, you need to include spacers and also make sure that the surface of the tile is even. Make sure to follow your lines as accurately as possible.

Stage III- Grout the Tiles, Seal Them

The next stage is to seal your tile grout. You need to seal your granite anyway so that it won’t be so porous, you can seal your grout lines at the same time, using the same sealer. Make sure to follow the directions as indicated on the label of the grout sealer that you purchase.

I recommend using DuPont’s stone tech sealer to get the job done right. You can use either a spray on grout sealer or you can use a brush on grout sealer. The advantage of using a brush on grout sealer is that it is less expensive and you can put it on a little bit thicker. You may need to do two or three coats before you have it properly sealed. You can test this out by spraying the surface with water and when it is properly sealed, it should bead on the surface. Sealing your grout is a good way to prevent it from getting stained. It will also help to keep the grout lines clean and help your grout to last for a long longer.