Regal Vanilla Rock 30x60 sku 811631

[Sean Kelly]

I've just completed a wetroom walls & floors in Regal Vanilla Rock tiles from Topps. These are the mat finish tiles that are very rough to touch. Nice tiles to cut, but a right bugger to grout. I tried to clean them before grouting. I used a trusted blue microfibre cloth (from Screwfix). The surface of the tile tore the cloth to shreds. There were blue fibers floating around the room for ages. I then had brush and hoover the walls and floor. I then applied 2 coats of BAL pre seal and waited an hour for it to dry.

I then mixed up white grout (Weber joint pro) to quite a thick consistency and grouted just over 1sqm. Using a slightly damp sponge (I don't use washboy anymore) I attempted to clean the surface of the tile. The sponge fared a bit better than the microfibre cloth, but it was still being eaten away by the tile. After 3 more wipe downs (because grout was embedded in the grooves of the tiles) I decided to stop (did not want to over wash the grout) I would say I have about 95% of the grout removed from the face of the tiles, but tiles are still drying with an ever so light haze. Will return when the bathroom is fitted to wash down walls with a grout haze cleaner.

It was like (I would imagine) trying to grout paving slabs a real nasty tile to grout. This is my warning to anyone else out there that has to deal with these tiles.

So, did I do anything wrong? I was contemplating taping up around the grout lines with duct tape then grouting, but that seemed like too much hard work.

I knew that these tiles would be difficult to grout, but it was worse than I had imagined.

Anyone else had these tiles?

 

[Stef]

Used them last couple of jobs I have done.
Didn't have much bother with them tbh but they do need a good wash down as they are a rough tile.
This floor is vanilla rock with Bal superflex,


The middle tiles above the bath on this job are rock but different colour, grouted with grout 3000,


Used a couple of terrible tiles from Topps, a lot worse than these.

 

[Sean Kelly]

Thanks for that info Stef. I just don't know what I was doing wrong. These tiles had no glaze on them, just a really rough finish. Their only plus point was that they were easy to cut.

 

[Stef]

I know what you mean Sean, I use good quality sponges, bal ones, that down break down when scrubbing.
I used my washboy on the floor & it came up well, I did wash off quicker than usual though as these tiles are as rough.

 

[Sean SML Tiling]

I done a 20m floor last year in non slip tiles went through 4 wash boy sponges and I shredded them while cleaning off.