Advice on restoring tiled over victorian tiles

[blahmartinblah]

I’m looking for a little advice on the procedure for restoring some Victorian tiles. Here is some background:

• Victorian tiles a main entrance/door way. Approximately 1m x 0.5m. They were tiled over in the 70’s/80’s with something that I'm sure looked great at the time.
• I have removed the top layer of tiles carefully using a hammer and chisel
• I removed the cement/adhesive residue from the top surface of the Victorian tiles using a heavy duty scraper. There was also some sticky adhesive on the surface possibly from another previous covering. I applied LTP Solvex according to the manufacturers instructions 3 times which has done a pretty good job of removing most of the foreign materials. I plan to give them 1 last clean with some LTP Grimex.

Photo:


Questions:

• I’m not looking for the tiles to be perfect and I’m generally happy with their condition now. Would anyone recommend any further cleaning processes though?
• The tiles need regrouting. What grout should I use? The gaps are much smaller than any tiles I have ever grouted. Is the process any different?
• The black tiles along 1 edge have some holes drilled in them. I plan to fill these with black grout. I appreciate it will not be a perfect job, but acceptable for the standard I'm trying to achieve/time I have available. Is there any other techniques to hide holes such as these?
• Should I seal/restore the tiles before grouting to prevent the grout staining the tiles? I have purchased LTP Colour Intensifier and Stainblock in anticipation for this.
• Do I seal again after grouting? With the LTP Colour Intensifier and Stainblock or other?
• Anything I’ve forgotten?

Appreciate any advice / compliments on my great work so far ;-)

Martin.

 

[MARBLE_TONY]

I would not being doing that repair with grout it will look awfull use a resin filler and if you want it cleaner after the grimes then buy a poultice leave it on for 24hours mix it with your grimex rinse and clean again then seal with the colour enhancing sealer couple of coats remember to wipe off excess.

 

[blahmartinblah]

Thanks for your reply Tony.
The epoxy/resin idea sounds good. I'll see what I can find.
Regarding the poultice - do you mean a product such as 'Aquamix Poultice Stain Remover' ? It seems strange to me that I would use Grimex along with this. Is it a trade secret or did I misunderstand you?

While the poultice sounds interesting, I'm not so worried about cleaning to them brand new condition. I would really value some advice on the correct procedure for grouting. (Use the colour intensifier and sealer before? after? both?)

Martin