Tile and grout cleaning in Prospect

Villas, bungalows and their original tiles

Prospect is one of Adelaide’s inner character suburbs, five minutes up Prospect Road from the city, and much of it is heritage: stone villas and return-verandah cottages from the 1890s and 1900s, Californian bungalows from the 1920s, and the Tudor and art-deco homes of the 30s along the streets between Churchill and Main North Roads. These houses carry tiles that are worth looking after. The front verandah is often tessellated, the patterned unglazed clay tiles of the period, porous and sometimes fragile. The original bathroom, where it survives, may have small ceramic wall tiles and a terrazzo or mosaic floor from a 1930s–50s update. Both are cleaned with neutral products and soft agitation, never acid, never high pressure, and both can be sealed afterwards. Tell us in the quote notes if your tiles are heritage and we will plan accordingly.

Renovated bathrooms and stone

Just as many Prospect bathrooms have been renovated in the last twenty years, often with natural stone: marble or travertine on the walls, a stone-look porcelain floor, a frameless screen. Stone needs a different approach from glazed tile. We clean the grout between stone tiles with pH-neutral products and gentle agitation, remove soap scum and the hard-water film with a non-acidic method, and seal the grout. We do not hone, polish or re-finish the stone itself; etching and dull patches in marble are a stone restorer’s job and we will tell you if that is what you are looking at. A shower recess is $149, a bathroom $229, with the ensuite at $179 on the same visit.

Flats, units and tenants

Between the character homes, Prospect, Nailsworth and Sefton Park have a good number of 1960s and 70s walk-up flats and unit groups, many of them rented, with compact bathrooms, bath-and-shower combinations and grout that has had fifty years of tenants. These are quick, satisfying jobs: a bathroom clean at $229 and colour sealing if the grout is patchy. Tell us about parking (Prospect’s streets are narrow and permit zones are common) and whether there are stairs, so the cleaner can bring the gear in without fuss. Property managers can book between tenancies on the same prices.

Selling in a competitive market

Prospect sells on character, and the photographs that sell it show every tile. A clean of the bathroom, the kitchen floor and the verandah, with sealing if the grout is light, is one of the smallest pre-sale spends with a visible return. Book a week ahead so sealing has time to cure before the photographer comes.

What we do in Prospect

• 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 Prospect, Nailsworth, Sefton Park, Fitzroy, Thorngate, Medindie, Collinswood, Ovingham, Broadview, Kilburn and Blair Athol. Every price is published.