Found out the hard way that vinegar strips grout sealer

I used straight white vinegar to clean a mold spot in my bathroom grout last month, and now the whole shower floor soaks up water like a sponge because it stripped the sealer off. Had to buy a $15 bottle of grout sealer and redo the whole thing. Anybody else accidentally wreck their tile work with household cleaners?

3 comments

3 Comments

john_fisher1mo ago

Hold on, sounds like the vinegar did you a favor by showing you the sealer was already failing anyway. A good sealer shouldn't be that fragile, and now you have a fresh coat instead of a patch job that would have worn off in a few months.

logan6581mo ago

Well now I've got to share this: I did the same vinegar test on my driveway last month just to check. Turned out the sealer was already bubbling up under the sun, and I ended up stripping the whole thing and starting over. At least the test saved me from having to redo it again next year. My wife watched me scrubbing the whole slab and said I looked like a mad scientist with all those bubbles. She was right, but at least now the driveway looks better than it did when we bought the house five years ago. Sometimes these little tests just reveal what we already should have known.

riverh491mo ago

Ha! That's the thing, @logan658, right? Your wife calling you a mad scientist is perfect because honestly, you kind of were. But here's what I'm wondering: did the vinegar actually reveal the problem, or did the test itself create the problem by softening that old sealer? I've seen guys online argue that putting vinegar on a hot surface can basically shock the sealer into failing even if it was holding up fine. Just something to chew on, because now you're out a whole weekend of work and a few hundred bucks on new product when maybe a simple power wash would have bought you another year.