backing off from Tile/Grout cleaning

After doing it for about a year Ive decided to back off from offering this service. I looked at the records for the last year and really got me thinking that its just not worth the effort/time/risk to even bother offering tile/grout cleaning.

The biggest things ive ran into are..

-too many homes have mdf baseboards surrounding their tile with no caulking or seal in between floor and baseboards, so if you get any water too close baseboards will suck it up like a sponge and swell

-even at $1-1.50/sq ft its hardly worth all the effort put into dealing with it, then sealing can be a whole nother deal.

-The risk of getting some tile cleaner on the wrong surface just is hard to justify, if you get 2790 or other cleaners on some stainless appliances you might as well take ur ass to home depot and buy a new one for what may easily be $2k+

-all the masking off and taping to protect areas and do the job right just isnt worth $1-1.50/sq ft

-running into too many poorly caulked sinks, poorly caulked back splashes (or no back splash at all), poorly caulked tubs etc... getting any water down in the crack and your liable

-hate the smell of the best available cleaners that actually get the grout nice and white

-too many customers with tile that just needs to be re grouted and not really a service I want to get into

-too many different types of sealant that the last guy or customer used, bad color seal jobs.. etc wax based coatings etc

- and last but not least, just too much carpet to be cleaned this time of year... we are really good at carpets/upholstery and very efficient at the same time so why even bother with tile/grout


Factoring all of that and the fact that I could just sell protector more, restoration carpet cleanings more, and more upholstery just got me thinking why the hell am I even bothering with this tile/grout


Havent been doing it long and by no means an expert on it... but just dont see how @ $1 a sq ft its even worth dealing with, the risk is really high. Its too easy to get cleaner on some cabinets, appliances, other flooring etc.

Plus its not a fast process to do a good proper job, you need to protect areas... gotta scrub in the tough heavy grease areas.. basically our hourly rate ends up much higher with carpets and upholstery with little to no risk at all.

Looking at the last year I could triple our tile/grout numbers just selling more protector or restoring neglected carpets.

I may revisit the tile/grout services down the road but very likely I will do it under a separate business name that specializes in all types of stone cleaning/polishing because in the last few weeks I have been having different thoughts and feeling like its a completely different ball game in which a truckmount is a small part of the puzzle.


I know lots of carpet cleaners offer this service but also many of them offer air duct cleaning... which most of the time is mediocre and utilizes some attachments and their truckmount.... nothing like real air duct cleaning trucks.


basically too many customers are asking about the tile/grout right now and the carpets are way too busy... just dont even want to mess with the grout cleaning since really I have always thought it was more of a pain than anything...

DP is that you?!?!?!

Didn't read it all, but I get the idea.....sorry to hear it.

If there are too many people asking for tile and grout cleaning why not raise your prices to were it would more profitable and worth the effort and risk? You know what best for your biz.

PS. Don't forget to remove tile and grout cleaning as a service that you offer on Angies

Wow AC...that was an informative post. I laughed my butt off at the home depot comment....Back when I offered Air Duct cleaning I had to compete with guys using attachments to a beat up TM unit and I had well over $45K invested in proper equipment....it was usually an easy sell against competing bids BUT I did have to teach each customer why the price difference. It was equal to "us" and the guy renting a store rental carpet cleaner....what a mess.

I totally can relate to that, that's why I NEVER promise anything with my cleaning ESPECIALLY with T&g cleaning, I will never use acid or any strong chemicals UNLESS the customer sign a liability release agreement which so far they never did, so I use viper venom only and scrub and extract, for the most part it will clean most jobs.
I think taping and covering everything are more of jobs for helpers and not employees to cut down costs.

The key here is the difference between "cleaning" and "restoration" of tile.

During the warm months, I will "clean" tile and only do "restoration" in the winter. Most customers are thinking "clean" and not "resto" when they ask if you clean tile....a few bucks to power scrub and extract.

Restoration cleaning is a lot of work with masking, grout repair, sealing, etc. I charge accordingly for that service while the power scrub cleanings are about a buck per foot.

You can make a lot of money on tile, just have to know where you want to draw the line on how far you willing to go with the service. Don't drop it, just reduce it down to a cleaning unless they want to pay a lot more for the restoration level.

Rob is right there's a big difference in cleaning and restoration. I do both and also charge accordingly. There's great money in it, if you are willing to ask for it.

95% of the time when a customer calls me to do "shower T&G cleaning", it's a restoration job, which I charge $4-800 per shower for, depending on size and condition........I've only done one for less money, the first one, and learned my lesson.......charge enough, and let the customer decide if it's worth it to them, I don't price them to try to get them.

Thats true, I could offer just a power scrub and extract but then you have to deal with customers that may leave a review saying the Tile/grout part of your services is negligible.

Sort of the same reason why if customers wont pay for a carpet resto then we wont do the cleaning because we just cant afford to put our name on anything other than the best we can do.

We charge extra for neglected carpet restoration (used to have it built into price) but then realized it doesnt make sense for people who have their carpets cleaned every year and work hard to keep them in good condition.

I agree that pretty much 100% of the shower t/g is needing restoration, many times regrouting/repair which I think is getting a little far away from what we offer. I like to get paid to run our truckmounts for a streamlined service and just cant afford to be on the hands and knees in someones shower sawing out grout.

I really like the stone cleaning in general but probably will add this as a separate truck down the road for cleaning, polishing, and repairs.

Basically I dont want to have a truckmount parked in their driveway not running the machine and be inside using hand tools when that truck is needed at other places for carpet/upholstery


Lately have been walking away from quite a few t/g jobs, mostly mildew in showers or old bathrooms that just dont make sense to even bother steam cleaning


I like the idea of doing commercial kitchens where its just lots of grease build up, they always have good toe kicks/back splashes with some tile going up the wall 6inches or so.


Ill take a pic for you guys the next one I see so you can see what these homes look like and tell me if you would touch the tile cleaning, Im talking about the MDF baseboards with an open gap right underneath them. Water would just run right into there and get sucked up like a sponge

Now showers is a service I simply can't do. The water is so hard here you don't clean them you blow them up.

Too bad we can't make something that we can install against the baseboards to make them water proof while cleaning and remove when done. If there was you know Saiger would find a place to store it in his van

Your last paragraph^ AC is one of the reasons I always suggest to guys that are going to claim to be "professional T&G cleaners", do so and become one by taking the proper classes and getting the needed training. Then you're trained to and can do a professional Job, and know how to handle those jobs with MDF base, stainless appliances and other obstacles.

A perfect example is a long time local cleaner friend of mine, I've been telling to get educated for a long time, but hasn't because he thinks he knows it all.....Going around charging $1+ s.f. for half assed service (trying to clean corners and edges with only a spinner, swelling MDF base, damaging SS appliances, leaving scuffs and stains behind that can easily be removed if you have the know how....u get the idea lol)........ because he really doesn't know it all.

It really doesn't have to be such a problem, I do jobs all the time with MDF and SS appliances, without an issue and not a lot of extra effort or time to prevent problems........But I'm always sure to get paid for doing so.

Ive never had any swelling on baseboards or hurt any appliances with about 100 t/g jobs.

Just the fact that it could happen even once, and comparing that to how much we brought in last year doing it.

its risky even with proper masking and prep.

how do you protect MDF toe kicks and baseboards Davey? do you tape all of that off or just very careful to use minimal water in those areas? What if the floor isnt perfectly even and the water runs towards a wall?


I imagine that even with masking the baseboards off if the water runs in that direction its going to soak right through what ever protection is there. Also what about when you have dirty grout lines leading right under the baseboards? I usually hand scrub these and then use the cobra hand tool to extract but makes me nervous.

I do find that lightly pouring the tile cleaner on the floor is much better than spraying it with a hydroforce or other hand sprayers, keeps the odor way down and much easier that way if your going to be scrubbing anyways

Then you should try mopping it on..

ya ive done that,     both works better than spraying. any answers on the questions above davey?

Most of the time I don't even put the solution on the tile just the grout.

ACpower1 wrote: 

how do you protect MDF toe kicks and baseboards Davey?     do you tape all of that off or just very careful to use minimal water in those areas?   What if the floor isnt perfectly even and the water runs towards a wall?

any answers on the questions above davey?

The real answer, like I said was to take the proper classes, but......

Yes, and no.

And charge the customer to caulk MDF base, $1 min per foot, done a min. 24 hours prior to doing job to keep damage from occurring............if you don't want to do it, pay a handyman .50 a ft. to do it.
If the customer isn't willing to pay to do that, then they sign a waiver stating you're not responsible for damage to their sawdust baseboards.

I can see where you are coming from, when you have a large online profile and you put your name on something it had better be good. I try to manage expectations so they realize their might be inconsistent coloring to the grout lines, occasionally some grout might can come out...bla, bla, bla....in my area usually our baseboards are sealed well at the joint. Some of you use more aggressive products than I do. My solution (high alkaline) won't etch, though I know some of you are using acid. I save that for the wicked spots, as needed...this means no masking. If you lowered expectations a little and went with an alkaline cleaner that wouldn't etch...would it be worth it?

Huh please explain

Sorry, I should have quoted the OP first post, which I was replying to. Not your post above mine.

AC, have you been getting away completely from T&G ? If yes, how's that affecting your gross total so far ? I don't do a lot of T&G because not a lot of customer willing to pay $ 1 - $ 1.25 / s.f to clean around LA area.
The last T&G job I did also turned out to be a nightmare job ( I posted it on another thread ).
I'm seriously thinking about getting away from them as well.

You know I'll say it again, but I'm getting tired of sounding like a broken record.

I really think if you guys took a class on hard surface cleaning you wouldn't have theses ill feelings towards it, because you would know what to look for, how to deal with MDF Base, when to walk, and how to deal with all theses issues you run into.

Yea, yea, I know I'm no expert, I was just asking for help yesterday in the Mop & Glo thread, still am. Because I don't know it all, but I do know more than my competition, and that usually puts me one step ahead of them, and usually keeps me out of trouble. By way of a lil education from a true expert, and some experience I've gotten from what I've learned from it.

I can't see getting $1 s.f. for cleaning most carpets, so why walk away from a $1 s.f. or close to it for hard surface cleaning?

Tile and Grout is a service that I do not quote over the phone. I like to pre inspect and demo every call I get.

If I get an objection to the in home quote. I tell them that I would like to do a demo so that we see what kind of results we can achieve before they commit to getting the tile cleaned.

That handles the price and results objection they may have. If I still get a No, which is rare they probably can't afford to get it done anyways and it saves me a trip.

The customers I like are the ones that have no desire to clean it themselves. Now for the ones that have tried to get the grout clean and have failed the demo allows you the opportunity to close the sale.

You get to show off your big expensive truckmount and show them how your 700,00 spinner works and then wow them with the results achieved.

The demo allows you to inspect the integrity of the grout, see if they have a 20 year film of mop and glow and gives you an idea how long it will take to get the job done.

If you worried about jacking up the baseboard don't use so much cleaning solution. I only use the solution on the grout lines then I use my Orbot to scrub the tile if its really dirty. My SX 12 has excellent recover so I get no pooling or over spraying. But nobody's perfect and I guess swelling the baseboards is a possibility but Its never happened to me before

Excellent advice, Mo!..+1 for you.  Testing is really the only way we know what we're really getting into.  And the customer is always impressed by your effort to do so also....esp. since your comp. isn't likely going to do it.  And it sure does make it hard to say no to your quote, once you've burned in a couple sq. ft. clean spot in the middle of their dirty floor.

Most guys here will look at it the same as going out to quote a job, a waste of time.........but it pays off in the long run, sometimes 2-3 fold.

Who in their right mind wouldn't take an extra few min., if it doubled their job ave./total?......I'm not stupid.


The funny thing about messing up the MDF base is, there's a way to avoid that, while at the same time making more money on the job.

I think it's just insane some are too busy to get educated by taking a class......or in a lot of cases to even be open to accepting advice they read on these forums (KIA's, same reason some never start threads, asking for advice/help, because they KIA I guess?)......oh well, where's that dead horse.

I forgot to put a smile after the mop and glow comment Dave

Great idea of giving in home estimate / demo on hard surface jobs, problem is that will not take a few minutes Dave, between going there and talking to the customer, and demo, it's going to take easily a couple of hours, in the mean time I can make $ 400 from carpet cleaning jobs with the same amount of time, it's definitely something to think about though, I can't see passing out $ 500 or more on T&G jobs all the time.