Cleaning teracotta tiles

[Cottage cosy]

Hello all

As promised, more photos of our place and a question for you clever lot.

In the main room of the house, soon to be the kitchen, we have an old inglenook and a teracotta quarry tiled floor.

Just for fun, this was the room when we moved in (dont you just love the pebbledash!):


This is the floor when we had begun to uncover it:


These tiles were buried below carpet, boards, cement levelling compound and some sort of tar (adhesive?) in places. We plan to lift and clean these before relaying over the newly laid floor. We have managed to remove most of this nasty stuff (what a job!!) and they look pretty good. But...

The tiles vary in colour and this appears to be because they are covered in a red (paint? glaze?) finish which has for some reason disappeared in places (bottom right of the picture is an example of this). I presume this finish is lead based and I would like to remove it off all the tiles. Although it seems it may scratch off in places, I fear this would result in a patchy finish and would take forever! Sorry there are no close ups of the tiles.

Has anyone done this before? Do you know what the best way of doing this is? I was wondering if some kind of chemical stripper is needed?

Thanks

 

[Nigel Watts]

Your

red (paint? glaze?) finish

might possibly be "Cardinal" polish which I remember my mother applying to the quarry tiles in her kitchen and larder floor the 1960s:

I believe it was wax based. If so, and if this is what you have on your tiles, it might come off with a solvent such as white spirit.

 

[Cottage cosy]

Iv done a quick search and it does sound like the likely culprit. It seems to flake off in places though and this seems to have a more waxy finish is that right? I wonder if it could just be that it has hardened with age?

I will try white spirit and see

Thank you!

 

[plasticpigeon]

I shall be doing exactly as you very shortly. Lifting the tiles, in my case as the floor is so wonky. Brick acid is good for getting old mortar and other stains off. I don't know about paint, or wax but it might work. Good luck with it. I saw that product or something very similar in my local hardware store.

 

[Lime]

I recall in the 50s-60s there was a thick oil paint available called cardinal red designed specifically to paint over red tiles.
The pigment in the paint was very dense so one coat would do and it would dry within an hour, after four hours it was ok for normal use.
It was a very common floor covering "solution" painted over concrete, composition, lino, oil cloth and wood as well as tiles (in fact anything on the floor) to produce a uniform red colour.

 

[Cottage cosy]

It does sound like the stuff

Plastic pigeon- we tried brick acid on a test tile but didn't touch it! Will try white spirit though. I can find no info on removing the stuff so if anyone else has any ideas they will be great fully recieved!

 

[Lime]

Paint stripper will remove the paint.
There are several types available.
As it is a large area I'd select one that has little odour.
Others on this forum have had much more recent paint-stripping experience that I so should be able to give specific advice.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Lime - thank you for your earlier post as that explains what's on my stone staircase.

I will be giving Strippers of Sudbury a call, when we come to restore that area. Cottage cosy, they're very good at advising the specific product!

http://www.stripperspaintremovers.co.uk/

 

[masochists-r-us]

Seems such a shame to lift the floor and maybe lose the character that the undulations give. Is the floor actually damp? It's a lot of work to undertake if it's not. Having had to lay reclaimed quarries in our kitchen as the originals had been removed by previous owners, I would have tried to clean them in situ. I understand that HG and Lithofin have some very good products for cleaning old flags and quarries so worth considering and maybe paint stripper for the stubborn ones.

 

[Lime]

Seems such a shame to lift the floor and maybe lose the character that the undulations give. Is the floor actually damp? It's a lot of work to undertake if it's not. Having had to lay reclaimed quarries in our kitchen as the originals had been removed by previous owners, I would have tried to clean them in situ. I understand that HG and Lithofin have some very good products for cleaning old flags and quarries so worth considering and maybe paint stripper for the stubborn ones.

I agree.
The quest for things dead-flat is a modern idea and rather incongruous in old houses.
If some are really bad they could be lifted and supported better but why the whole floor?

 

[plasticpigeon]

In my case I am going to lift the floor as it had dropped by 3 to 4 cm on one side, making it tricky to put kitchen cupboards in. Probably a quarter of the tiles have been replaced already with a mix of cement, smaller quarries (6" not 9"), tiles from an old fireplace and even pieces of wood that are now rotten. . Admittedly, I could just lift half the floor to replace the worst bits. I might even do that but I fear it may look a bit of a bodge. I think Cosycottage's tiles look much nicer than mine though.

 

[Cottage cosy]

I totally agree we love the undulations- goodness knows how much this needed to be walked in to wear like they have! Unfortunatley they are very cold and many are broken. We intend to lay lime Crete with heating pipes and an insulating layer, then relaying the tiles on top. Aditionally, half the floor doesnt have them and so we would still need to find a way of making thr floor all level if we didnt lift them. We're not going for a perfectly flat finish and won't be sealing the tiles (so no 'high shine' finish). It's one of those necessary compromises to make the house as warm as possible.

Thanks for that link to the Suffolk company, I had seen it on here before and couldn't fid the link when I looked the other day! They have a few suggestions depending on the finish so I will Definatley be consulting them.

 

[billybuntus]

I've had great success with LTP products

For cleaning

Try http://www.ltp-online.co.uk/ltp-power-stripper_3.html for removing paint and any existing finishes or oils etc
Then a dose of this http://www.ltp-online.co.uk/ltp-grimex_1.html

At this stage if its still not 100% then you could hire a power scrubber from your local tool hire place.

The select the finish you want.
http://www.ltp-online.co.uk/identify-your-surface.html

Just run through the how too on that page to select the right products for the job based on whether you have dense terracotta or porous.

 

[Flyfisher]

This might also be of interest: http://www.artofclean.co.uk/services/terracotta-quarry-tile-brick-cleaning-sealing-cambridge/