Ceramic tiles going blueish

[Deleted member 9966]

my best advice is to stop using the shower for a few weeks and see if the blueish hue on the tiles starts to fade.

I have some white bumpy tiles on my bathroom walls which, every time they get wet, start turning grey. Once I stopped using the shower, they dried out and became white again. It's just the make up of the tile unfortunately. When water seeps behind them, sometimes it can soak into the biscuit behind and affect the shade on the glazed side.

the sealer that was use will not have taken to your ceramic tiles if they were originally a shiny gloss like finish, so there is no point trying to strip the sealer as you could end up damaging the gloss cover on the tiles.

let the shower area dry out and see if it changes the colour of tiles.

 

[TPW]

just to let you all know, I have been in touch with lithofin and they have agreeded that the sealer should not of been used in the first place, in there opinion the dicolouration is due to the fact that the sealer would not of been absorbed and has just dried on top of the tiles collectiing all sorts of dirt, they have recommended there cleaner Wexa and have told me if that is the case it should remove it and any other dirt and bring the tiles back to there original colour. i am going to try this and i will let you know the results, thank you for all your input.

 

[Dan]

If they'd have seen the picture they would have seen it's not affected the adjacent tiles in the same way. Which suggests it isn't surface contamination at all, but simply water behind the glaze (so in the biscuit backing of the tile which would soak up moisture). It also looks like that the affected tile in the picture is one that's getting in contact with more water with the corner of the tile sitting in the shower.

I wouldn't have thought it could be wise to remove the sealer, but the product they've sold you will not fix the 'blue' problem.

Wait for the tiles to fully dry out and you'll see that they turn back white as they dry.

To prevent it in the future you could perhaps re-grout with epoxy which is a smaller job than replacing the tiles for sure and water be water tight so the water wouldn't get behind the tiles in the first place (depending on the rest of the tiling job, siliconing, that sort of stuff).

 

[doug boardley]

ceramic tiles aren't fired anywhere near as high a temperature as porcelain tiles, hence less vitrification and more absorbency.I think Sir Ramic has hit the nail on the head by suggesting that water is leeching into the tile biscuit via the grout jonts.

 

[carol]

We also have cream ceramic tiles that now have blueish marks on them. They were laid with no sealant. We have them in our wet room that also had underfloor heating put down.
You would think that any moisture that travels between the grout lines would therefore dry out. Our patches have shown no signs of dissapearing. Has any one got any ideas as to what is going on?

 

[Deleted member 9966]

Yes. ceramic tiles are not suitable for wetroom floors. you would have to leave the wetroom unused for days or even weeks for the water in the grout lines to dry out properly. ceramic tiles absorb water and grout is not waterproof, so hence your tiles are turning a different shade.

 

[Stewart]

As GRR and the thread say.... Ceramic tiles as unsuitable for wetroom floors. The moisture will become trapped behind the glaze of the tile and will probably never dry out properly. I don't know of any easy fix to this problem apart from replace the tiles with something more suitable.

 

[Dan]

Just bumping some of the older popular (sometimes not so popular) threads. Probably wont be current discussion these days but I just need to do it. So just ignore the thread if it's not current for you.