Travertine Grouting Tips

Get tips on re-grouting your travertine floors. Find out how to remove old grout and make new grout stick without experiencing grout discoloration.

LESLIE: Sue in Utah needs some help in the kitchen [1]. What can we do for you?

SUE: I purchased a home with a travertine floor [2]. The home is 10 years old. The travertine floor is original.

TOM: OK.

SUE: The grouting [3] is coming out. They’re 12x12 squares. It’s got a very dull look and there’s chipping along the edges because the grouting is coming out and I’d like to know what to do.

LESLIE: Well, this is a situation where you’re going to want to remove the rest of the grout as best you can just to sort of give you a nice, even surface in the grouted areas so that you can go ahead and regrout the flooring. Because if you try to add – Tom, if she tries to add some new grout on top of the old will it adhere as well as you would like it to?

TOM: It probably won’t stick and you definitely would have a color issue.

SUE: OK, what do I remove all the grout with?

TOM: A grout saw. It’s a device that can either be attached to a drill that will grind it out or there’s a hand version as well. And once you get it regrouted, you mentioned that the travertine is rather dull. There’s a good website that has a lot of products dedicated specifically to taking care of those natural surfaces. It’s called Stone Care – StoneCare.com [4].

SUE: OK.

TOM: And they have a number of products that can help freshen that surface up and make it look better again.

SUE: Great.