Hello all,
I moved in to a home a couple of years ago and we’ve been dealing with smelly tile in the kitchen. The smell only comes out after mopping, but a strong wet dog smell makes its way throughout the whole house. It seems to be coming from the grout when I actually get down and smell it. I replaced a 5’x5′ section of grout and the smell seemed to go away for awhile, but has since come back with a vengeance. None of the flooring stores we’ve talked with seem to know what’s going on. I’m turning to this awesome community for answers
Thank you,
Jordan
Replies
Never heard of smelly tile but I guess anything is possible. Mix Oxyclean in hot water until no more will disolve. Mop it on the floor so the floor is really wet and leave it until it starts to dry then mop it again. After the grout has been wet for 20 minutes or so you might even scrub the grout with a stiff brush. It may or may not work but even if it doesn't your grout will be sparkiling clean.
Florida,
Thank you. I'll give this a try. I'm really not an expert on tile and reading articles on this site always teaches me something new. Some of the conerns that I have is that there is some kind of mold growing in the grout or, even worse, that there's something going on underneath the tile that is causing this. The only thing that triggers the smell is getting the grout wet. I plan on removing and replacing a tile here in the coming weeks because it's damaged. Is there anything I should be looking for that might indicate a problem?
Thank you,
Jordan
Mold doesn't grow on tile, or in grout. There could be mold UNDER the tile, or (more likely) there is some chemical (such as dog urine) that has soaked in. You need a chemical to "denature" the problem chemical. Hydrogen peroxide, oxalic acid, and a few others might be tried. (I suspect that Oxyclean contains a chemical similar to oxalic acid.)
If there is mold under the tile you'll see it when you remove one. If that's the case, unlikely in my opinion, you'll have to remove it all to remove the mold. The only possibility of mold under the tiles would be if they had been set in mastic rather than thinset.