Hi Everyone,

What is the product outsolve used for? Are any of you cleaning Tile and Grout? What are your methods and the product you use?

Thanks,

Bri and Jo

Outsolve is a medium-high pH vegetable-based cleaner made by Bioforce (www.bioforceinc) It is intended as a traffic lane cleaner, but I use it for most everything. Bioforce also makes "Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner", a general purpose product with a neutral pH.
Re. tile & grout: Challenger makes & sells a brush for their machine. It sells for $35. Reach them at contact@challengerop.com or
www.challengerop.com. Some people who clean tile & grout with an OP machine clean up the mess with cotton pads. Others use a portable extractor.

Hi Mark,

Thanks again for all of your help. Do you use the Bioforce products to clean hard flooring? We seem to be struggling with what product to use for cleaning and sealing. We can't wait to try out these products especially for the health benefits. We will check out the tile and grout brush for the Challenger.

Bri and Jo

Whatever product you are using to clean carpet will most likely be effective in cleaning tile with grout. Make sure you allow for some dwell time, to help soften up the imbedded soil -- maybe 10 to 20 minutes. There also are many stone cleaners and grout cleaners on the market. Some are on the acid side, and if splashed on anything metal could cause the metal's finish to be damaged. There also are steam vapor machines, which put out steam at close to 300 degrees Fahrenheit, @ 60 psi. These are slower, but probably remove more soil than a floor machine with a tile/grout brush attached. I save mine for the most difficult grout jobs. Two brand names are Fogacci and DeLonghi. One distributor is www.vaporpros.com. (Fogacci) Another is
www.homeenv.com (Delonghi).

For tile and grout, try either h2orange2 in mixed form from the concentrate, or their "Grout Safe" product. Both are "green seal" certified, work great, and are environmentally safe as water. Give them at least 5 minutes dwell time. Both deodorize and sanitize, and GreenBuildingsupply.com even lists the Hydroxi product as a bleach substitute. I homebrew beer and switched to using this to sanitize my beer equipment...

Check out: www.h2orange2.com.
A "clone" product is Hydroxi Pro, and they also have a grout specialized product. This product is also green seal certified. I've used the carpet cleaning products from these companies in people's homes and they have a very pleasant orange oil smell which customers seem to love.

You can buy the Hydroxi products at www.parish-supply.com very inexpensively and no sales tax!

Thanks Grant,

We thank all of you for helping us with all of these questions. WHat do you use to scrub the tile and grout with? Do you use the challenger with the tile and grout brush?

Thanks

I just got my Challenger on Thursday so haven't ordered any brushes or anything for it. I have an old Oreck orbiter with all the attachments. For now, I'm just going to use the challenger for carpet and the orbiter for everything else.

Sounds Great Grant, We too have a Challenger and an Orek Orbiter. We may have to do the same. We still have to purchase the attachments.

Thanks again!!

Hi Bri and Jo! We have done alot of tile and grout cleaning. Your Challenger with the grout brush will work great, however, it will splash the cleaner up on the wall boards, bottom of stoves and refrigs ect. which can cause damage and is a mess to clean up. There is a splash guard you can buy which works great at Myers Ent. phone 714-544-4818. or you can make one out of those plastic decorative 3" tall boarders for flowers and lawns. Just make a circle, not to tight, big enough to go around your pad driver and screw it together. Carpet cleaning chems I have found are not normally strong enough for tile and grout. Better to buy cleaner for that purpose. We use Vipor Venom and Vipor Renew from Hydro-Force www.hydroforce.com Venom is a heavy-duty high ph cleaner that cuts grease and grime from the grout lines, Renew is an acid cleaner that is used after you use Venom this really makes those grout lines pop right out. DO NOT SRPAY these cleaners on the floor, mop them on so you don't splash on anything. Let the Venom dwell 10 or 15 minutes then remove it with a shop vac or damp pads on your challenger. After rinsing the Venom off the floor apply the Renew or other acid cleaner, no dwell time is needed. Then remove the acid cleaner. There are many grout sealers out there they can be expensive. We have found that Soil Blocker which is a carpet protector from Hardball Chemical Co. also works great as a grout sealer. Call Mike at Hardball 1-888-261-3103. We use Soil Blocker as our regular carpet protector for our encap and pad cleaning has very high solids content and dries quickly. For tile and grout its much cheaper than sealer for tile and grout. By the way we charge $1 square foot to clean and $1 square foot to seal. If I can help answer any questions call me at 269 441 8631 or e-mail me at jamesengland@cocast.net Good luck you are going to love your Challenger machine. Jim

Bri and Jo sorry my email is jamesengland@comcast.net spelled it wrong the first time.

Jim,

Thank you for all the information...we really appreciate it. We will save your email address and phone number and we might just take you up on that phone call. Do you use the Hydroforce floor unit for cleaning?

Thanks,

Brian and Joline

Bri and Jo No we don't use the hydro unit. Depending on which unit is at the job site, we either use a steamon demon to pick up the solution or a shop vac and our pad machine. For the guys that just have a challenger machine all you need is a shop vac. After the solution has dwelled and you have scrubed it with your challenger and tile and grout brush,just spray a little more water on the floor being carefull not to spash any solution on the walls or appliances and then use a shop vac to remove most of it. Then use your challenger and some damp pads do finish the rinse and then a dry pad. Put a blower on the floor until grout lines are dry then seal. Hope this helps. Jim