Cleaning Moldy Tile Grout

The bathroom is perhaps one of the most conducive environments for mold growth in one’s home. With heavy use and often time’s poor ventilation, mold growth is quite common. We’ve all walked into a bathroom and seen the shower with black caulking that was originally white, whether as guests in someone’s home or every morning as we prepare to start our day. As we all know a dirty bathroom is a major turn off for potential home buyers and visitors alike. While there are a few ways to remedy this problem, today we are going to discuss removing mold growth from your bathroom grout and caulking rather than replacing.
Supplies:
You will need the following items:
Mixing bowl (something disposable is recommended)
A gallon of anti-bacterial bleach,
A box of baking soda,
A brush ( I used a chip brush from Home Depot,)
A spray bottle,
Plastic food wrap.
Creating your cleaning solution is rather simple. First pour 1 ½ cups of baking soda into your mixing bowl. Next begin adding bleach and mixing your mold cleaning solution until the paste reaches the consistency of a bad batch of pancake batter. The baking soda doesn’t provide much in terms of cleaning ability, but instead acts as a medium to keep the bleach focused on your targeted problem area.
After you have mixed your cleaning solution and reached the desired consistency, take your brush and apply the solution to the moldy caulking. Working in small – medium sized sections apply the paste liberally, (making more is really easy,) and then cover with your plastic wrap to keep the solution from evaporating. Use any leftover paste to clean stubborn toilet rings, your porcelain sink, or whatever else you would like to clean. Remember that bleach will cause pitting on many metal surfaces.
Allow your bleach solution to sit for several hours while you relax and enjoy the time you have just saved by not having to recaulk your entire bathroom. By now the solution has probably dried out and you will be left with a chalky residue. Wipe away some of the residue in a small area and see if the caulking looks as good as new. If it does, then congratulations! You have just saved yourself hours of mess and frustration. If there is still remaining mold, pour some bleach into your spray bottle, apply enough to the solution to saturate it, cover, and check back in a few more hours. *We did two applications for our results.
Hopefully when you have finished your caulking looks brand new or at the very least much better than it did. To clean up the rest of the solution a scrub brush and a bucket of water will more than suffice. If for whatever reason you did not get the desired results of this project we discuss replacing bathroom caulking in this blog post.