Clean Tile Floors Easily Without Chemicals or Scrubbing

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Learn how to clean tile floors in just minutes without chemicals or scrubbing. Use this easy cleaning tool to remove dirt from ceramic tiles.

Today, we’re sharing how we tackled a bathroom problem using a cleaning tool that easily removes deep down dirt from ceramic tiles. Learn how to clean tile floors in just minutes without harsh chemicals or vigorous scrubbing.

Wow! I love this easy idea for how to clean tile floors quickly and easily. Who knew you could get ceramic tiles deeply clean without chemicals or scrubbing on your hands and knees?

Ugh… I hate cleaning bathrooms. In my home, I have two small boys, a husband, and a scruffy mutt dog. I feel like I could spend days on end trying to keep our bathrooms clean and tidy. No matter how hard I try, I struggle with getting our bathrooms really, truly and deeply clean.

Our ceramic tile floors seem to take the brunt of the mess and grime. I would love to blame the mess on everyone else. It turns out though, I am actually the worst culprit of them all!

My Problem

You see, my husband and I share a master bathroom with two sinks, one for him and one for me. The ceramic tile in our master bathroom is greenish gray with brown and tan swirls through it.

It’s an awesome color combo because it hides the dirt well most days. In fact, it took me a while to even notice the dark brown spot by my bathroom sink. For a long while, I thought it was just part of the tile.

Wow! I love this easy idea for how to clean tile floors quickly and easily. Who knew you could get ceramic tiles deeply clean without chemicals or scrubbing on your hands and knees?

Here, I’ll remove the rug and you can see it better:

Wow! I love this easy idea for how to clean tile floors quickly and easily. Who knew you could get ceramic tiles deeply clean without chemicals or scrubbing on your hands and knees?

The Cause

Like most women, when I get ready in the morning I use hairspray and other products. The dark dirty spot on the ceramic tile comes from the build-up of those products.

This heinous spot has been my nemesis for several years now. I’ve tried mopping with cleaning products, scrubbing on my hands and knees with a bucket of sudsy soap and any other method I could think of to clean tile floors. No matter what I tried, that dark spot just would not go away.

Wow! I love this easy idea for how to clean tile floors quickly and easily. Who knew you could get ceramic tiles deeply clean without chemicals or scrubbing on your hands and knees?

Disclosure: We want to give a huge thanks to HomeRight for sending their Steam Machine 53 to help us tackle our problem. This blog also post contains affiliate links for products or services we think you’ll like. This means if you make a purchase from one of these links, Ideas for the Home by Kenarry® will make a small commission at no additional cost to you so we can keep the great ideas for the home coming your way. All opinions expressed are derived from personal experience.

A Solution to Try

I was embarrassed to have anyone use our master bathroom for fear they’d see that awful dark spot and judge me. More importantly, though I was starting to worry that I had somehow permanently stained the ceramic tile with my hair care products. Just when I had nearly given up on the idea of having clean tile floors, HomeRight offered to send me their Steam Machine 53 to try. In the past, we’ve loved using their large spray shelter to paint the coat rack in our front hall and the organization racks in our mudroom so I was anxious to see how their Steam Machine 53 works.

How the HomeRight Steam Machine Works

The HomeRight Steam Machine 53 uses highly pressurized steam for chemical-free cleaning. They said it will remove deep down dirt and grime from hard surfaces and kills 99% of all germs and bacteria including; e-coli, salmonella, and staph. It sounded like a dream come true! I couldn’t wait to give it a try to see whether it would tackle that dark spot.

How to Clean Tile Floors Without Chemicals or Scrubbing

Spoiler Alert: The HomeRight Steam Machine 53 exceeded my expectations and did an amazing job of conquering my nasty problem. It seriously only took a few minutes and that spot was GONE.

Wow! I love this easy idea for how to clean tile floors quickly and easily. Who knew you could get ceramic tiles deeply clean without chemicals or scrubbing on your hands and knees?

I’ve got step-by-step photos and instructions to show you exactly how I used the HomeRight Steam Machine 53 to the clean tile floors and remove that spot once and for all. But before we get to those I thought a short video would help give you a better idea of how easy this little machine was to use. It was shot in real time on my iPhone using a tripod unless otherwise noted so you can see just how FAST it was to tackle that spot!


Now if you want to clean tile floors in your own home. Here’s what you need to do.

What You Need to Clean Tile Floors:

Instructions:

1. Fill the Water Tank in the Steam Machine

While the Steam Machine is still unplugged, remove the safety cap and fill the water tank with 40 ounces of distilled water. Screw the safety cap back on tightly. Make sure you read all of the safety warnings in the manual that comes with the Home Right Steam Machine. Failure to follow their precautions could result in steam burns.

Wow! I love this easy idea for how to clean tile floors quickly and easily. Who knew you could get ceramic tiles deeply clean without chemicals or scrubbing on your hands and knees?

2. Attach the Cleaning Adaptor and Attachment to the Steam Gun Nozzle

The household accessory kit for the HomeRight Steam Machine 53 comes with several different adaptors and attachments. To deep clean tile floors in my bathroom, I used the straight adaptor and the small nylon brush. However, it also came with:

  • A squeegee for cleaning glass surfaces that are above 32 degrees Fahrenheit like windows, mirrors and shower doors (If the glass is too cold, they warn that it could crack.)
  • A fabric steamer for cleaning clothes and mattresses
  • A jet nozzle to disinfect crevices in bathrooms and kitchens
  • A brass brush to clean grease and grime in grills and ovens
  • An angled adaptor, extension wands and large cleaning brush with a cloth to clean tile floors as well as vinyl and linoleum floors. It says it also works to clean marble and granite surfaces. You should NOT use it on wood or laminate floors, laminate countertops or any surface that isn’t sealed properly.
Wow! I love this easy idea for how to clean tile floors quickly and easily. Who knew you could get ceramic tiles deeply clean without chemicals or scrubbing on your hands and knees?

3. Heat Up the Home Right Steam Machine

Plug the Steam Machine into an electric outlet in your wall and press the power button to turn it on. The red light and the orange light on top of the Steam Machine will light up. The red light shows that the machine is turned on. The orange light shows that the machine is building up steam. It takes at least 8 minutes for the machine to heat up. The orange light will turn off when the machine is ready for you to use it.

Wow! I love this easy idea for how to clean tile floors quickly and easily. Who knew you could get ceramic tiles deeply clean without chemicals or scrubbing on your hands and knees?

4. Steam Clean Tile Floors

Now comes the fun part! Pull the trigger on the steam gun and aim it at your grimy floor. Gently press the nylon brush back and forth across your tile. You don’t need to press very hard or to scrub with it. Just move the steam gun lightly back and forth across the spot wherever you want to deeply clean tile floors.

Wow! I love this easy idea for how to clean tile floors quickly and easily. Who knew you could get ceramic tiles deeply clean without chemicals or scrubbing on your hands and knees?

You’ll notice condensation from the steam starts to form on the hard ceramic tiles as you clean. I just used paper towels to wipe the dirty water away, but a microfiber cloth would work perfectly too.

Wow! I love this easy idea for how to clean tile floors quickly and easily. Who knew you could get ceramic tiles deeply clean without chemicals or scrubbing on your hands and knees?

Continue to go back and forth over the dirty spot on your floor with the steam gun until the dirt is totally gone. You can let it air dry at that point or if you’re just spot cleaning like I did you could wipe it dry with a paper towel or a clean microfiber cloth.

Wow! I love this easy idea for how to clean tile floors quickly and easily. Who knew you could get ceramic tiles deeply clean without chemicals or scrubbing on your hands and knees?

5. Finish Cleaning the Rest of Your Tile Floor

After you’ve deep cleaned any of the nasty spots on your floor, you can attach the extension wands, angled adaptor and large cleaning brush to the steam gun and use it to finish cleaning the rest of your tile floor.

Wow! I love this easy idea for how to clean tile floors quickly and easily. Who knew you could get ceramic tiles deeply clean without chemicals or scrubbing on your hands and knees?

Once you’ve cleaned your tile floors, release the remaining steam from the nozzle. Unplug the unit and allow it to cool completely for at least 30 minutes. Then empty any remaining water from the tank and store the Steam Machine away until the next time you need to clean tile floors.

Wow! I love this easy idea for how to clean tile floors quickly and easily. Who knew you could get ceramic tiles deeply clean without chemicals or scrubbing on your hands and knees?

6. Stand Back and Admire Your Sparkly Clean Tile Floors

I’m not kidding when I say it only took me a few minutes to get rid of that nasty spot on my bathroom tile floors. When my husband, Kent got home from work that night and I showed him the video I made he couldn’t believe it either. It felt like the dirty spot just melted away from all that steam.

Wow! I love this easy idea for how to clean tile floors quickly and easily. Who knew you could get ceramic tiles deeply clean without chemicals or scrubbing on your hands and knees?

The Results

When I see the remarkable difference between what the tile floor looked like before compared to what it looks like now, I’m just astonished. It’s so clean now, I almost feel like I could eat off that floor. It’s a bathroom, so I won’t — but seriously I feel like I could!

Wow! I love this easy idea for how to clean tile floors quickly and easily. Who knew you could get ceramic tiles deeply clean without chemicals or scrubbing on your hands and knees?

Now that I’ve tried the HomeRight Steam Machine 53 and have seen how well it cleans tile floors, I find myself looking around my house wondering what else I should use it on…. I want to steam clean everything now!

Wow! I love this easy idea for how to clean tile floors quickly and easily. Who knew you could get ceramic tiles deeply clean without chemicals or scrubbing on your hands and knees?

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More Cleaning and Organizing Ideas

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Wow! I love this easy idea for how to clean tile floors quickly and easily. Who knew you could get ceramic tiles deeply clean without chemicals or scrubbing on your hands and knees?

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5 Comments

  1. What I don’t understand is the concept of wiping down the entire floor with paper towels or microfiber. How much toweling or how many cloths did you go through for your bathroom? I need to clean our entire 1st floor about 3 times a week and I can’t see that as practical. I am still hoping to find a cleaner with tanks for clean and dirty water. I’ve had 2 Hoover Floormates and both were pretty flimsy. They both lost suction, the second one after 2 uses. The second one also sprung a leak in the clean water tank. Surely there’s got to be something with that concept that works better. (With larger tanks!)

    1. Hi Debbie,
      Great question! You only need to use paper towels or a microfiber cloth if you’re heavily steam cleaning one area to get the gunk out of the tile like I was. If I only sprayed that spot with water or a household cleaner and then tried to wipe it up, it would not come clean. I really needed the HOT steam to knock all the dirt and stickiness loose from built up hairspray and dirt in my master bathroom. For regular day to day floor cleaning the HomeRight Steam Machine 53 has a microfiber towel that you put at the end of the extension wand and that picks up the moisture from the steam as you clean. You don’t need to go back over it a second time with paper towel or anything. Then you just throw that microfiber part in your washing machine and you’re ready to go for next time.

      If you ever find a great floor cleaning tool that has separate tanks for clean and dirty water, please let me know. I’d love to find a vacuum mop that works like you described too!

      Best wishes,
      Carrie

  2. I don’t feel the need to buy some piece of equipment to clean my tile floors. I have over 500 sf of tile. The tile has little grooves that collects the dirt. How do you clean tile like that? I need something that will get the dirt out & suck it up. All mopping does is keep the pattern in the tile full of dirt. It’s porcelain tile from Italy. Any suggestions?

    1. Hi Suzanne! Have you tried a mop with a microfiber pad? It may be a good non-chemical alternative to a steam cleaner. The microfibers do a nice job of wiping away and holding onto the dirt, but you’ll have to put a little more elbow grease into it than a steam cleaner. If you do give it a try, please let us know. We’d love to hear your opinion on it.

      Best wishes,
      Robin for Ideas for the Home by Kenarry

  3. Wow, I’m surprised at how well that worked! I’ve never used a hand held steam cleaner before, but now I’m tempted to get one because my tile gets filthy so quick…especially with little kids and dogs running around my house. I typically just get a tile cleaning from a local company a few times a year so I don’t have to do the work myself.

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