Tile and grout cleaning in Golden Grove

A planned suburb reaching thirty

Golden Grove was one of Adelaide’s big planned developments, built out from the mid-1980s through the 1990s and into the 2000s on the north-eastern foothills around The Grove shopping centre and Golden Grove Village, with Greenwith, Wynn Vale and Surrey Downs filling in alongside. It was designed for families and still is: four-bedroom brick homes with two bathrooms, a tiled kitchen-meals-family area and, very often, the original floor tiles still in place. Those tiles were the fashion of the time, 300 mm ceramic in cream, sand or terracotta tones, laid with cream grout that looked warm and forgiving when new and now looks like thirty years of family life. That floor is the typical Golden Grove job: 30 to 50 square metres of lightly-glazed ceramic with cement grout gone brown along the kitchen bench line and in the walkway to the back door. At $8/m² a 40 m² area is $320; grout that has never been cleaned is $11/m², and we tell you which before starting.

Ensuites, main bathrooms and the hard-water haze

The bathrooms of the era are generous, with a separate shower and bath in the main and a compact ensuite off the master bedroom, usually with the same cream tiles and a framed screen. After three decades the shower grout has typically gone grey or black in the bottom rows and the corners, and Adelaide’s hard water has left a dull film over the lower tiles that supermarket sprays don’t move. A bathroom clean ($229) deals with mould, soap scum and scale together, with the ensuite at $179 on the same visit. Grout this age often cleans up lighter but patchy; colour sealing gives one even colour and suits these bathrooms because it makes an original room look renovated without touching the tiles.

Dust from the hills face

Golden Grove sits against the hills-face zone and the paddocks beyond Yatala Vale, and on a hot north wind the dust comes straight through. It settles in floor grout faster than in the inner suburbs and is one reason cream grout here greys so evenly. After a clean, a clear seal at $5/m² means the next summer’s dust mops off instead of soaking in. Alfresco areas and verandahs, which collect the same dust plus leaf tannin from the gums, are cleaned at the same floor rate.

Selling or downsizing

A lot of Golden Grove’s original owners are now selling or moving to smaller places, and the agents’ photographers find the grout in every kitchen and bathroom shot. A clean, and colour sealing if the grout is patchy, is one of the cheapest things you can do before the photos, and it is worth booking a week ahead so sealing has time to cure.

What we do in Golden Grove

• Showers and bathrooms: mould, soap scum, hard-water film, $149 a shower recess, $229 a bathroom, $179 each extra bathroom
• Floors, splashbacks and alfresco tiles: $8/m² for living areas, kitchens, hallways and outdoor areas; splashback $69
• Grout cleaning on its own: every line pre-treated, scrubbed, rinsed and extracted
• Grout sealing: clear sealing from $5/m², colour sealing for stained grout
• Shower regrouting and grout repair: quoted after an inspection, done by a licensed tiler

Covers Golden Grove, Greenwith, Wynn Vale, Surrey Downs, Fairview Park, Yatala Vale, Salisbury Heights, Gulfview Heights and Redwood Park. Every price is published.