OT: Shower tile

First, I'd check to see if the tile lost its glaze or it it is a buildup of hair spray. You'd understand that if my daughter used your bathroom.

The only way to restore a glaze is to coat it with glaze and fire it in a kiln. You can do it in you home oven if you can rig it to go to

Thanks, Ed. I like a hot shower, but 1850 degrees is a tad hotter than I prefer.

He was referring to the oven temperature. 1850 degrees is the required temp to glaze a tile.

Goto home depot or Lowes. They sell sealer , there are different types. One of them will do what you need. BTW there are many bathroom remodellers that will reglaze your bathroom, so the stuff is out there.

And no you don't need 1850, these are chemically done.

I'd be checking to see if it has truly been etched or if it has amineral build-up. Try cleaning with CLR or some other mild acid. If that doesn't work, try polishing with a very fine abrassive to see if you can restore the gloss. If you can, perhaps there is a chance of salvaging the tile.

Sounds to me like you might have very agressive alkaline water ??

That is an epoxy based coating, not a true reglaze. It may be acceptable in a pinch, but tile glazing is essentially a glass coating.

Lime Away a product, is very useful for cleaning tiles and stuff with alkalinity build up. Especially when it is warm. I would do it with gloves and warm water. Great for coffee machines, just needs to be purged a few times before using it to make coffee again.

If hair spray - or soap film ...... I'd try a solvent. Long before I rip them out...

Mart> >> A small section of the floor ceramic tile appears to have lost its

So is vinegar.

Yes, but no where near as effective.

As long as the conversation is about bathroom tiles, what is a good way to put re-adhere one that fell off (due to the vibration from sliding shower door being slammed too hard into the wall). It's 2" square, and both the wall and the tile have remnants of brown adhesive. It is in 2 pieces now, due to hitting the floor, but I consider that a non-issue as the pieces fit together seemlessly. If it makes any difference, the tile is in the "shower area" but not in an area that normally gets wet (it's higher than that).

Thanks! Bill

Since it was installed with mastic in the first place (a mistake, in my opinion) just glue it back in with tile mastic, PL cement, or silicone. No guarantee it won't fall out again - but no guarantee the one beside it won't fall out first. Re grout after gluing.

Thank you. Since I've just got one 2" tile, I'm trying to keep the cost under control. The space is so minimal (between tiles), that I think a little extra silicone will suffice as "grout" (assuming the silicone has some adhesive properties, as you seem to imply). Did I read that right? This is a tile "on the corner" (two edges showing).

Bill

Silicone is both. In the situation you describe it will function quite well as an adhesive. If you have white grout (and kept it that way) after you set the tile back in place the silicone cures, carefully mask the grout line are to just expose the width of the grout line showing on the other tiles. Squirt a small amount of the white silicone into the grout line and then take a WET finger and firmly press down and trace the grout line ONCE. It will leave you with a nice clean line. After it begins to set up, carefully remove the masking tape and pat yourself on the back.

and crazy glue or similar would also seal the cracked tile if the pieces were glued together first, then down as the above.

I personally hate silicone in the bathroom it molds over quite quickly. I started using the old standard DAP with mildewcide.. I think it's microban 2000.

I like it better than silicone. I have limited my use of silicone more and more, going back to other means, and only using it when needed. BTW , they make grout in a tube for small fixes, or having to seal the plumbing to the tile... Can't remember the name, great stuff.

Kitchen and bath, or tub and tile silicone has the mildewcide as well, and works well.

Perhaps, but I'm not fond of silicone for many solutions. When I caulked the windows and my aluminum siding the silicone broke loose of the siding quickly. Not the DAP.

And I have still had problems with bath silicone (not sure if it had mildewcide) it mildewed quickly. The dap has not.

Thank you! I'll print this out. And I may "crazy glue" the tile too, as OFWW suggested. I would not have thought of that , and it would seem to eliminate the possibility of ending up with the "cracked tile look" (which is probably more likely, than not, without the crazy glue).

Thanks everyone for your suggestions!

Bill

Silicone based products get a bad rap in my book, but not for the reasons m ost don't like it. It started years ago when it was touted as a product th at would seal any surface, could be used as an adhesive, would work for all kinds of minor repairs, and was the must have sealer/adhesive/caulk/waterp roofer for repair and remodeling.

Then we find out the hard way (NO warning from the GE people 40 years ago) that silicone sealer isn't UV resistant. So all the sheet metal flashings that have been sealed with this will leak in about 3 years.

We didn't know that surfaces to be sealed had to be PERFECTLY clean. Any t ype of surface residue will prevent a good seal.

No one told me it wasn't paintable. So with the really nice paints that I use that will adhere to motor oil (just a joke...) they would stick to the silicone, but peel off later.

Found out it worked reasonably well as an adherent, but did not penetrate c ertain surfaces well enough to call it an adhesive.

Result: No silicone product in the truck or on the job for the last 25 yea rs. There are much better products out there for each one of the tasks men tioned above, and they are a lot less money, too.

I see now they have different products that correct all the problems I had long ago, but on examination of the tubes I found at HD, they still don't h ave one product that is UV resistant, mildew resistant, paintable, etc., in one tube.

No thanks. I like PERMANENT repairs, repairs that I walk away from and nev er think about again.

If I was replacing a tile, I would use DAP with Microban. When do a tiny r epair like that I get the small tube in the correct grout color and glue it in, then use the DAP as grout.

As far as the problem with the glaze on the tile, no need to reiterate good solutions.

Robert