How to Repair Cracked and Worn Grout (Shower)

[Music] hey in this video I'm going to show you how to fix cracked and broken grout in tile in a bathroom so we've been living in this house for about two years and most of the grout is fantastic there's no problems anywhere but in this little shelf unit here in this shower we've got some problems as you can see we've got grout that's kind of worn away as we've just cleaned it with regular bathroom cleanings and we've got other areas where the grout is cracked and kind of peeling out of the joint and I suspect what happened when this shelf unit was installed the Installer didn't mix the grout with the proper amount of water if you put a little too much water in then the ground winds up shrinking a little too much as it cures and you get flaking and cracking like this so today I'm going to show you how to fix this the first step is to clean the whole area just wipe it down with a damp sponge to remove all of the shampoo so if any of the residue that's left from anything so you've got clean surfaces to work with and then the next step is to remove the grout from the areas where it needs to be replaced anywhere that it's worn down or cracked or chipped so there's lots of different ways to get the grout out of the cracks the cheapest way probably without requiring lots of expensive tools is to just pick up a little handheld grout saw like this one it cost me around $10 at the local big-box store and you can see it's got two different kinds of blades on it the first here has some diamond dust embedded into the blade and the other side has some Sarah to teeth like that there now I'm going to be removing the serrated blade and just using the diamond dust tip because my gaps are fairly narrow and I don't think this will fit in with both blades on there but you can certainly use both plates if you prefer then it's just a matter of using the saw to get down into that crack and remove all that ground [Music] all right it took a lot of elbow grease but I've removed the grout using that ground saw so now I'm going to use a little handheld brush to brush out into the extra dust that's left next I'm going to use a very slightly damp and iMeet slightly damp it's almost dry sponge to wipe down the area I don't want it to be very wet because I don't want to get a lot of moisture in those cracks because I'm almost ready to put in the new grout all right I'm just about ready to start applying my new grout to replace what I've removed in many cracks first let me show you what these cracks look like now that they're prepped as you can see I tried to be very careful not to get under the surface of the tile at all I just removed the grout in between each of the pieces of the tile and I went down as deep as I could until I started to feel the cement that is behind the tile instead you can feel the texture change the cement is significantly more difficult to get out than the ground okay so now that I've got the grout all cleaned completely out and I've wiped down the area to make sure that there's no extra dust remaining I'm ready to put the new grout in now I'm using a particular kind of grout called fusion Pro that's only because that's exactly the grout that was used by the Builder and I'm doing that on purpose because I can match the color that's the most important thing to me if this lines up cracking again I have to do this job every couple of years that's not the end of the world to me I hope it doesn't and it's not supposed to especially because I'm using the pre-mixed style here so I know it has the right amount of water in it already but I didn't want to have it mist colored and so I went and made sure I got the exact same color that my builder used so it will blend in seamlessly with the areas that I did not remove the grout from okay so putting the grout in is pretty easy you're gonna want to use what's called a grout float again if you don't already have one of these they can be picked up for less than $10 at your local big box store and you'll just want to get a little bit of the grout onto the corner of your float and then you use that to push the grout down into those cracks and you need to push pretty firmly we want to make sure that that grout gets pushed all the way into the back of that crack you want to use diagonal strokes that helps to work it down into that crack better you'll want to keep your sponge handy but not very wet and as soon as you put grout into one area lightly very lightly sponge around that area to remove any of the extra grout that winds up on the surface all right I finished applying all of the new grout and now I've got a very lightly damp sponge that I'm just going to go over and wash off the surface being careful that I don't put too much pressure on it the reason is because the adhesive from the grout can get out onto the surface of your tiles and if you leave that there it'll it'll cure and it'll have a kind of a haze that forms on the tile and I'm going to try and avoid that now in your case you may wind up with a haze that shows up and they do sell special haze remover that you can use to remove that haze without damaging the ground you've just installed when you wipe to remove the haze like this you want to use a very light touch a very dry not completely drive it and just barely damp sponge and you want to go in an angle you don't want to run along your grout lines you want to go across your grout lines I'm going to go rinse off my sponge and we'll wipe it one more time [Music] all right it's been nearly 24 hours since I put this grout in and it's curing up nicely and that was the right time to wipe off any haze that has formed on the tile to do that I'm going to be using this haze remover note that this is the non cement kind because the grout that I used here is a non cement grout they make haze remover for the cement kind of grout as well so just make sure if you're going to be using a haze remover product like this that you make sure it matches the kind of grout that you actually used so I'm just going to pour a little bit of this into this rag and then we're just going to wipe very very lightly to remove any of the haze I'm not using much pressure at all you don't want to force this down into the grout just a very light wiping is all it takes all right he's removed all right well that's about it this is a pretty simple job if you've got a free afternoon you can take care of correcting a little problem like this without too much trouble the hardest part is removing the old grout and that just takes some old elbow grease but as you can see now my my grout lines look nice and smooth and they're filled into the right height and they match the color of the existing grout I'm really happy with how this turned out and now all I have to do is wait for the grout to cure so I can use this shower again well anyway thanks again for checking out this video I hope you've learned a little something along the way with me and if you did and if you like what you saw go ahead and give me a thumbs up and bring that little subscribe bell if you want to see more videos like this in the future another than that there's nothing else to say except thank you very much for watching [Music]

Channel: AmplifyDIY

Views: 301,746

Rating: 4.9429846 out of 5

Keywords: cracked or worn grout, how to fix cracked grout in shower, shower repair, cracked grout repair shower, repair cracked grout, how to repair cracked grout, grout repair, cracked grout in shower, shower grout repair, cracked grout repair, grout repair shower, tile grout repair, cracked grout, tile grout, how to repair grout, grout saw, how to, fusion pro grout, fusion pro, non cement grout remover, how to remove grout haze, grout haze remover, regrouting tile, tile repair

Id: 9tA1CoV1tkc

Length: 8min 15sec (495 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 19 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/quangdog]

Anyone here had to replace grout? In particular, I’m curious if anyone here knows much about “Fusion Pro” grout? It is supposed to never require sealing, and resist staining, but is not holding up well in our house, and I’ve asked several of my neighbors (all built by the same builder) and they are all having problems with their grout as well.

Is this a problem with the product itself? Or is the installation faulty?

[u/SnakeyRake]

A very soft voice and soft hands.