Cleaning old slate floor

[Nena70]

We recently bought a house, which has an old slate floor in the hallway (approximately 100 sq ft). It consists of greenish gray, irregularly shaped tiles (probably from when the house was built in the 50s). There's ingrained dirt and even grout in the ridges and irregularities of the stone (and the grout is actually dirty too). I stripped the sealer, and used stone and tile cleaner (along with a scotch brite pad and lots of elbow grease) and got rid of a significant amount of dirt, but there is still some left, which bothers me a LOT! I don't want to seal it until it's really clean. Any advice would be much appreciated!

[Sponsored Links]

[ob1kanobee]

Repeat the cleaning procedure again and use a shop vac to suck up the dirty water or use lots of clean water. Sounds like you just need to do it one or tow more times to me if you are getting good results.

Make sure material dries before doing any sealing. (very important)

[Nena70]

Thanks Ben. I'm not sure I'll be able to get at the dirt using the exact same method as before (I've actually tried that on the dirtiest areas), but maybe I can get into the crevices with some other tool (nail brush?)? The old grout I imagine isn't coming off unless I chip at it with something, which may not be a good idea. Is there any other cleaning solution that might be more effective? I think I read you can use hydrogen peroxide to clean grout?

[ob1kanobee]

Do you have any Simple Green? You could try that. Not sure about hydrogen peroxide.....................................

I know I have never tried HP................................