Terms of Use
These are the terms that govern the use of this website and the terms that apply to our services. If you don’t agree to the terms of the website or the terms of our services, you are free to leave and not use our services. If you do decide to use our services such as regrouting or grout color sealing or any tile repair or installation, then you agree that the following terms apply unless specifically altered in writing by a representative of our company. Field technicians are not authorized to change these terms of use. If we make any changes, they will be posted on this page for simplicity and clarity.
If we regrout floor tiles, please stay off them (floors) for several hours to allow them to dry. Overnight is safer, in fact. If we regrout shower walls, we request you allow them to dry for at least 24 hours before using the shower. In some cases, our technician may recommend even longer, such as 48 hours, especially if a grout or caulk line had to be filled to cover an unusually large gap, so it may need extra drying time.
Clear penetrating sealer that goes on new grout does not change the drying time. Color sealer dries very fast and is usually safe to walk on within 45 minutes or so. The manufacturers do request that you not wash a color sealed floor for a few days to allow the coating to harden completely before exposure to water. Light damp mopping is OK, though. After floors have been color sealed, we recommend using a diluted solution of ‘neutral cleaner’ to wash them when needed. It’s not necessary to use heavy duty or harsh cleaning agents – neutral cleaner and water are able to handle any normal soil cleaning requirements with no damage to the sealer. Neutral cleaner is a category, not a specific name of a product. It’s usually available at home center outlet stores like Home Depot or Lowes, and also janitorial supply houses and some hardware stores. It is very economical to use and a gallon of concentrate can last the average residential kitchen floor more than a year if used correctly. The key is to use it quite diluted. You can safely use it much less strong than the label says (remember, their goal is to sell you more liquid!) If you use very harsh or caustic solutions like wax stripper or heavy concentrated cleaning agents on the color sealed floor, it’s possible to damage the finish. The sealer is durable, but not bulletproof. Since it doesn’t need harsh chemicals to remain clean, please don’t use them. If you can’t find neutral cleaner, let us know and we can find you vendors who are either near you or can ship it to you.
If we are regrouting a floor (or wall) where grout has cracked, it may be due to excessive movement under the tile in the subsurface below. (We can’t always tell from looking at it). Try as we may, there is no way for us to guarantee that the cracking won’t return, unless you allow us to replace the subsurface (which means a brand new floor or shower wall for more cost). So regrouting cracked floor or wall grout is a risk – not a sure thing.
Grout colors are approximate and may not match the color chip or the existing grout perfectly. Even the manufacturers state this on every box of grout and bottle of grout sealer. So we do our best to avoid color problems, but color matching grout and caulk remains a very ‘rough science’. It’s also possible during the regrouting process to scratch a tile with a blade while removing the grout. We always try to avoid this, but over the years we’ve found it’s impossible and impractical to guarantee it won’t happen, so we don’t guarantee it. Most people understand this, and it’s rarely been an issue, since we try to be extremely careful and it doesn’t happen very often. It is a risk of the process that we can’t completely remove.
If we are regrouting a tile installation and tiles come loose from the wall or floor, that is always due to inadequate bond. It usually means the tile was not cemented with good coverage of thinset cement. If it were, then cleaning, regrouting or sealing would not dislodge it. If tiles come loose, we are not responsible in any way for replacing them for free. We are willing to re-bond the tiles back on to the wall or floor if that is feasible or if any replacement tile can be found by the client, but we always charge extra for this. Our goal is not to be unfair, but we often work on tile installations that are in need of repair, and that need becomes apparent only when we remove the grout lines and the tile falls off the wall. In some cases, the grout or caulk is literally the only thing holding the tile on to the walls, which does not indicate healthy tiles, to say the least. In some cases, it becomes clear to our technician that the shower or floor may not be salvageable, or that it should be replaced and not regrouted. If that is the case, we will inform you so you can consider alternatives. We can give you a quote on complete replacement if you would like, or you are free to use any other contractor if you prefer.
We respect the privacy of our customers. We may contact you by phone during the job or afterwards, but you will not be telemarketed by constant phone calls. Also, your email address will not be used for any other purpose than to communicate with you about the job or follow-up after the job is over. We do periodically send out notices to our previous customers, but if we do so we will always offer you the option to opt out and not receive any more emails. We often take before and after pictures of tile work or video footage of the process, but when we use these for promotional or training purposes, we never identify the customer’s name, address or contact info. If you would like us not to do so at your home, we will respect your wishes. We may ask you periodically to provide a reference for us to another potential client or a testimonial, but this is entirely voluntary and we only want you to do so if you feel like it, not under any kind of pressure.
For one day jobs, we require payment at the end of the job. If the job is set up for more than one day, we usually request half down on arrival and half on completion. We have remarkably good relations with our clients and very few collection problems, but if we have to pay any collection costs at all including attorney fees, we pass them on to the client who made the expense necessary. It almost never happens, so it’s not something that affects most customers. We request that you leave a check with our technicians – we trust them and you will get full credit for your payment. If you’d like a receipt for the payment, the technician will be happy to provide you with one.
Sometimes when grout or caulk dries, it may leave small pinholes that concern you. If that happens, just call us back and we’ll take care of it for no additional charge. It isn’t always avoidable if the tilesetter cut a large gap and the caulk or grout shrinks while drying. The solution is to add more grout or caulk and that solves the problem.
Some clients hire us due to leaking or moisture concerns. Regrouting may in fact often solve the problem of missing, cracked or broken grout and leakage. But while we’d really love to guarantee a solution to all leakage problems, we just can’t. That’s because the root cause of nearly all leaking problems is bad installation or plumbing problems. When you hire us to regrout, we are only able to work on the top of the surface; we can’t reach down below the tile to get at what may be the true cause of the leaking. Regrouting may be a cost effective solution; but we can’t always be sure. If we know for sure it won’t help, we may decline to do the job just so as not to waste your money – we only want to do it if it has a fighting chance of solving your leaking problem.
We try to keep the work area clean, but regrouting and applying grout does create dust. We do clean up at the end of each day, but our technicians are not professional house cleaners. We do try, but you may still find that a thin coat of dust may be present even after we have cleaned up. We’ve had some ladies in very clean houses decide to schedule their housecleaner for the day after our visit, which may not be a bad idea.
Color sealer will work on normal grout, but not thinset cement. If there are spots of thinset where grout should be, this may result in sections where the color sealer won’t stick. (Usually caused by a careless tilesetter who failed to clean thinset out of the grout joints before grouting, especially with gray or white grout, since those are the two thinset colors). Just let us know if you notice this and we can remove the thinset and replace it with grout. If it’s minor we don’t charge extra, but if it exceeds one hour we charge our standard repair rates.
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