Tile and grout cleaning in Norwood

Two kinds of Norwood home

Norwood is one of Adelaide’s oldest suburbs, laid out in the 1840s, and the streets off The Parade still hold the bluestone villas, symmetrical cottages and return-verandah homes of the 1870s to 1920s, most of them renovated at least once. Behind and between them, especially toward Kent Town, Stepney and the Parade itself, the last twenty years have added townhouses, apartment buildings and infill, so the suburb now has two distinct kinds of tile job. In the old homes it is heritage surfaces (tessellated verandahs, a surviving mosaic or terrazzo bathroom floor) and renovated bathrooms in stone or large porcelain. In the new builds it is light grout on big tiles through open-plan living and fully tiled showers with frameless screens where Adelaide’s hard water leaves its film on the bottom rows within a year.

Heritage surfaces, handled gently

Tessellated verandah tiles, encaustic entry floors and old terrazzo are porous and, after a century, sometimes fragile. We clean them with neutral products and soft agitation, no acids and no pressure washer, and seal them with a penetrating sealer that doesn’t change their look. In renovated bathrooms with marble or travertine, we clean the grout and the stone surface with non-acidic products and seal the grout, but we don’t hone or polish the stone; etching in marble is a restorer’s job and we’ll say so. Say what the surface is in the quote notes and send a photo; it helps the cleaner bring the right products.

Apartments, short stays and tenants

Norwood, Kent Town and St Peters have a high share of renters and a growing number of short-stay apartments, which means bathrooms and kitchen floors that are cleaned often but rarely deep-cleaned. Grout in a busy short-stay shower goes grey quickly, and the hard-water film dulls the tiles. A shower clean at $149, or a bathroom at $229, with a clear seal on top, resets it and makes the between-guest wipe-down work again. For apartments, tell us the floor, lift and parking situation (The Parade and the side streets are tight) and any body-corporate rules on working hours. Owners and property managers can book between tenancies or guests on the same published prices.

Before the photographer

Inner-east homes sell and lease on their photographs, and grout shows in every bathroom and kitchen shot. A clean, and colour sealing where old grout is patchy, is a small spend before a campaign. Allow a week so sealing can cure.

What we do in Norwood

• 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 Norwood, Kent Town, Stepney, Maylands, St Peters, College Park, Hackney, Marden, Trinity Gardens, Payneham, Beulah Park, Kensington and Rose Park. Every price is published.