Tile and grout cleaning in Marion

Marion’s post-war streets

Marion is the centre of Adelaide’s south-west, known for Westfield Marion and the aquatic centre, but the suburbs around it (Mitchell Park, Park Holme, Ascot Park, Oaklands Park, Marion itself) were built out in the late 1940s, 50s and 60s, a large part of it by the South Australian Housing Trust for the families working at the factories along South Road. Thousands of those double-brick and brick-veneer homes are still there, and a surprising number still have the bathroom they were built with: small wall tiles in pastel pink, green or lemon, a terrazzo or mosaic floor, a bath with a shower over it, and cement grout that has absorbed seventy years of soap and water. That is often the darkest grout in any Adelaide home, and it still comes up further than owners expect. A bathroom clean at $229 lifts the mould, the soap scum and the hard-water film; colour sealing ($299 on top) gives grout that has stained right through one even colour; and where it has cracked or fallen out around the bath we quote a regrout through a licensed tiler rather than cleaning something that needs replacing.

Rentals around Flinders

With Flinders University and the Flinders Medical Centre a few minutes away in Bedford Park, Marion, Mitchell Park and Clovelly Park have a high share of student and hospital-worker rentals, often in those same post-war houses or in the unit groups that replaced some of them. Leases turn over with the academic year, and dirty grout is the first thing the property manager photographs. Tenants can book the tile clean for the day before the bond clean; owners and agents can book between tenancies on the same prices, with the invoice to whoever is paying. A typical vacate job (bathroom, laundry floor, splashback) is $367.

Renovations and the floors between

Marion’s big blocks and flat ground have made it a renovation and subdivision suburb over the last fifteen years, so between the original homes are extended houses with 2000s porcelain through the back, and new two-for-one builds with pale grout that shows every mop. Those floors are $8/m²; the 1980s kitchen update with the brown tiles and the grout that matches the mop water is more often $11/m², and we tell you which before work starts. The Sturt River runs through the middle of it all, and the homes along the linear park get the leaf litter and the dust on their alfrescos.

Terrazzo and the Trust laundry

Terrazzo laundries, porches and bathroom floors are common across the Trust-built streets. We clean terrazzo with neutral products and a rotary machine, strip old polish residue, and seal it. We don’t grind or polish it; if it is etched or worn through, that is a stone restorer’s job and we will say so. Our terrazzo guide covers what to use at home and what to keep off it.

What we do in Marion

• 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 Marion, Oaklands Park, Mitchell Park, Park Holme, Ascot Park, Plympton Park, Warradale, Sturt, Seacombe Gardens, Dover Gardens, Clovelly Park and Bedford Park. Every price is published.