LESLIE: Marie in Florida has a question about tiling. What can we do for you today?
MARIE: I want to see if you can help me. We put in a new flooring and it was in the kitchen and the tile is 12″x12″ and we wanted to make it look nicer so we sealed the tile in addition to the joints, which was a mistake because every time I try to wash the floor this sealer comes off.
TOM: Ugh.
MARIE: So how do I remove the whole thing and just leave the sealer?
TOM: I’m wondering if you could do some sort of an abrasive buffing of the floor with the cleaning compound; renting a floor buffer from a rental house …
MARIE: OK.
TOM: … and then buffing the tile surface to try to pick more of it off.
LESLIE: You know, Marie, you might want to try acetone. Now it’s something that you would find in the home improvement center; straight acetone. You can buy it. It’s really – it’s a good cleanser. If, at your home, you’ve got a nail polish remover with acetone in it – and the reason why I know that there’s nail polish remover without acetone in it is because I’ve glued my fingers together with Crazy Glue before (Tom and Marie laugh) and, believe me, I’ve tried every nail polish remover that did not have acetone in it; did not get my fingers apart. As soon as I got the one with acetone it popped right apart. The acetone is great at removing sealers, super-strong adhesives. It may react with the tile, so you want to make sure that you try it first in an area and if you’ve got nail polish remover, in the house, with acetone give it a test. But if you’re going to do the entire floor I would head to the home center and get like a big bottle of straight acetone. I wouldn’t go to the beauty store and try the nail polish remover.
TOM: Marie, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
Leave a Reply