Tile Grout cleaner

[Wanderlust]

My wife, bless her cotton socks, is concerned about how dirty the grout between the tiles on the floors in our house is, so we have been trying to find the best (and best value) cleaning fluid to do this. Regular household cleaning agents will but involve a LOT of elbow grease, while products we have seen that claim to do the job seem to be prohibitively expensive for what they are and without us knowing for sure that they will work (given that over here you can't take it back). We have had some Thai door to door sales women come round demonstrating their product but a couple of things put us off - firstly neither of us like buying at the door, because you can never be sure that what you actually get is what they show you, and once again the price, as they wanted to sell us a dozen large bottles for 6000 baht!
Has anyone come across either a 'homestyle' recipe or a product that does the job or is this just one of those jobs where elbow grease is needed?

[Big Boy]

6000Baht! You could probably buy the cheaper stuff and hire a Thai cleaner to do the job using a toothbrush for a fraction of that price. Not wanting to sound racist - Thai labour is cheap.

[splitlid]

50/50 vinegar and water, leave on for 10 mins and wash off.
if not work then increase the vinegar percentage.

[PeteC]

I've used 1:1 water and laundry bleach with a toothbrush, but have been told eventually this will eat away the grout. The key word is "eventually" as you only need to do it every 1-2 years.

I really hate grout and when we need to re-tile our downstairs I'm going to use the tile that seams together with no grout, leaving just a hairline space between. Pete

[poosmate]

hydrochroric acid - either buy it from a builders merchant or pool shop.
Dilute it 50/50 with water. Duck bathroom cleaner ( I think the purple bottle) has 20% acid so should do neat ( use gloves).
I would advise using sombody elses toothbrush

[chopsticks]

Never really found a satifactory solution apart from raking out or scratching a few millimetres off the top surface and regrouting again.
An old hacksaw blade is useful for this.

[migrant]

Regrouting works, and if you can find a grout saw, it sure helps. The grout saw is a stiff, thick, saw blade mounted on a handle.

My ex used to soak tissue in a 50/50 bleach mixture, line the grout lines, and pull off and wash 30 minutes later, worked pretty well.

[PeteC]

We really screwed up here as when the house was built we paid little attention to the grout they used and how they mixed it. Short answer is 'cheap' and 'not correctly'. Our problem right now is not grout staining, but chunks coming out from normal cleaning and walking.

I've re-grouted some and used swimming pool grout, similar to Ardex from the UK and it's holding up very well, probably outlast the tiles. Even with this though, you have to mix it correctly or you're wasting your time and money. Pete

[margaretcarnes]

Hydrochloric acid, straight bleach, toilet duck, should all do the job cheaply but its a very common (and annoying) problem in LOS. Especially in wet rooms, where the constant use of water leaves its' nasty slimy brown residue even as you clean up.
Even here in the UK I use 100% vinegar for a lot of cleaning jobs. It cuts through grease but still needs to be left on to shift limescale. With Thai grouting I'm afraid its just a case of regular scrubbing - and some people re-grout quite regularly as well. Or as Pete quite rightly IMO points out - re tile with butted joints for a long term solution.