Cleaning the wet room floor

Just tried a suggestion from new carer, for wet room floor ie

bicarb mixed to a paste

results…nil points!

polls

He/she’s fired!

fire `er? no, I cant do with looking for another…

pollsx

Flowerpot, if you want a really good mop for your rough tiled floor, go for the SYR Squeegee floor washer (I got mine from System Hygiene). I think its proper name is the Swop Mop. Use the cellulose sponge not the viscose one. It’s great, my tiles don’t destroy it and I rarely need to change the head. Polls/Boudica I don’t know what chemicals are best for Altro floors but you need some method of scrubbing it, rather than just mopping it. i.e. a deck scrubber like Flowerpot uses, (but you then need someone strong to use it - hopefully your carer is?), a battery scrubber such as the Caddy Clean, which I use, or a scrubber/dryer, if you can afford one, and if you can train your carer to use it.

thanks.

pollsx

I have just had a wetroom fitted & the floor runs into my utility room. We are finding the floor difficult to clean particularly in the utility room which has the most through traffic i.e. my Dog! Anyone got any suggestions re. cleaning or mop to buy?

My lovely husband uses a Vax steam cleaner on the wet room (and the kitchen) floor. It isn’t something that I could use from a wheelchair, but an able bodied person finds it incredibly useful. And as it also qualifies as a gadget (alongside the cordless vacuum cleaner!) it’s a joy for him to use.

On a daily basis, we just use a squeegee on the wetroom floor just to dry it off a bit. We get quite cheap ones from Lakeland or Sainsburys.

Sue

I use a Caddy Clean battery scrubber, which is great, and industrial strength chemicals. I also use a floor squeegee to dry the floor, after using the shower, and after rinsing the floor cleaner off. Also, if I need to mop it, I use the SYR Swop Mop, with the cellulose sponge head.

Bleach, can’t beat it. A rough brush & bleach, smell’s of a swimming baths, lovely.

I always wanted a wetroom so when i got this place a year ago it already had one fitted :relaxed: it was the clincher lol .

Its funny really how a year later i am diagnosed with ms and my wetroom is a life saver .

It was written in the stars.

Regards Iain .

No one has mentioned the extractor fan and opening the window!! We do that everyday to finish airing the wetroom. An ordinary mop gets the worst up and my cleaner gives it a good clean with bleach solution every 2 weeks.

Our floor is polyfloor, non slip.

Just a thought, what about a power hosepipe, it is a wet room. Then again you will probably get loads of splash back. If I can clean my patio so it looks like new; might be an idea.

They usually DO NOT recommend a pressure washer for indoor use! the idea is not to blast it into next week

Patios tend to be decking ot concrete - wetrooms - not so much!!!

Hi All, I looked into getting a steam mop for my expensive, textured, unglazed, porcelain, wet room floor tiles, but I’m advised that forcing boiling hot steam into them would cause irreparable damage, so Flowerpot, re your original post, and readers of this forum with tiled floors, a steam mop is a very bad idea. For those of you with Altro/vinyl floors, I understand steam is fine. Also, FP, if your tiles are unglazed porcelain, I still think you’d be better off using black stripping pads rather than a brush, although, as you quite rightly say, the pads do need changing fairly regularly. For people with softer tiles you would need softer pads e.g. blue scrubbing pads. Those of you with Altro/vinyl floors, I still think your floors would benefit from a good, hard, scrubbing, but in your case you need red spray clean pads, nothing too abrasive. On the chemical side, FP I tried bleach, like you suggested, but it is hopeless compared to my strong specialist stuff (I use Lithofin and sometimes Bar Keeper’s Friend) - on porcelain you can use anything but softer tiles need more care and Altro floors need neutral, solvent free, stuff.

Our wet room floor (proper vinyl stuff) was laid by people who did it badly. It’s split in the corner where I scoot around on my shower chair. Apparently it was supposed to be cushioned all round the edge and it wasn’t. Boo. So new floor here we come!!

Still, it was a bit light coloured and looks a bit grubby, regardless of cleaning routines / materials / equipment. So we’ve chosen a darker colour for the replacement. Hopefully it will always look pretty.

Sue

Good luck with the new vinyl floor Sue. I was wondering myself if taking up the tiles and replacing them with vinyl might make life easier. I don’t think it would look as good though and I’m not sure from what I read here that the cleaning process would be that much less involved.

We considered replacing the vinyl with tiles but decided it would be more dangerous if I fell over. Not that I make a habit of that, but just in case.

I don’t think the vinyl floor takes much extra work. The trouble is that wheelchairs mixed with wetrooms means you kind of need a housemaid to keep them clean. We dry it off as well as we can, but the wheels leave dirt on the floor no matter what you do.

Oh well. That’s the trouble with having a ‘chair that goes outside and is used indoors. It’s a bugger.

Sue

Sue, you’re absolutely right about our wheelchairs. They are the enemy of our wet room floors. I now try to do most of my cleaning whilst in my shower chair with the brakes on. I never turn in there in my electric wheelchair and I go in there as little as possible.

Gosh, two years cleaning wet room floors. I prefer to read a good book!

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+1, a steam mop is the best option. But it’s a bit tricky to buy a good one. Its performance depends on its power: the higher it is, the faster the device will heat up, and the stronger steam pressure will be. The volume of the water tank affects how long the squeegee will run on one fill. The larger the area of the wet room, the larger tank you need. But if you don’t wanna mess around, you can order a floor cleaning service. Such services are usually called for commercial spaces, but I don’t know how big your house is. By the way, if a steam mop will be used by elderly people, it’s worth choosing a lightweight model with a small fluid reservoir.