How to clean Victorian tile floors
How to clean Victorian tile floors
Victorian geometric and encaustic floor tiles from the 19th and early 20th century are an amazing architectural legacy, that is practical, durable and above all very aesthetic.
This blog post outlines cleaning techniques, specification guidelines and some of the drawbacks and mistakes made during the cleaning of Victorian floor tiles.
Before and after cleaning a Victorian floor tile scheme
Victorian floor tile cleaning can be undertaken via three approaches:
• Chemical clean, such as surfactants, alkaline or acidic solutions. The Lithofin or HG chemical cleaners offer a good range of both domestic and professional products.
• Mechanical clean via cleaning pads.
• Aqueous, via steam or water application.
All the above approaches have benefits and drawbacks and a specification for cleaning Victorian & Edwardian tile floors can be based upon the following parameters:
Considerations when deciding how to clean Victorian floor tiles –
• Type of tile and level of vitrification and porosity.
• Condition of the fire skin of the historic tile face.
• Condition of the screed/subfloor and wooden joists/headers and pug.
• Durability and condition of the Victorian tile grout.
• If encaustic tiles are present on the tile scheme how durable are the clay inlays.
Before and after cleaning a Victorian floor tile scheme
The type of soiling and residual previous treatments that exists on Victorian tile floor, then further informs the cleaning method. Perhaps the floor has carpet and lino adhesive, historic wax / linseed oil applications, polyurethane sealants or more modern acrylic sealants.
What tends to happen is that everyday dirt and dust emulsifies with the previous tile surface treatments creating a very stubborn soiling coating. As the thin fire skin wears under footfall, the emulsion then is absorbed in other tile clay structure particular if the floor is subjected to various water and chemical cleaning regimes.
While it is difficult to offer a prescription for all Victorian floor tile cleaning we can offer a few things which you defiantly don’t want to do:
Problems associated with cleaning Victorian tile floors –
• Over saturation of the tiles and screed. This can cause problems with tiles ultimately lifting from their bedding plain and failure of floors.
• Over saturation of tile leading to salt efflorescence.
• The use of proprietary tile cleaners that are too strongly acidic or alkaline.
• Over cleaning with abrasive pads leading to removal of encaustic clay inlays.
Before and after cleaning a Victorian floor tile scheme
Victorian Tile Restoration Edinburgh talks to a lot of clients both private and professional who have tried to clean a geometric Victorian tile floor themselves with varying degree of success. The advice we would offer them would be:
• Undertake a trial area before undertaking a full clean,
• Don’t saturate the tiles as water is the biggest decay mechanism that can act upon historic fabric
• Try and gauge how strong the chemicals that you are using are, you don’t want the
solution to be too acidic or alkaline and for your own comfort you want it be solvent
free.
As an overall observation be prepared for it to be hard work!
