How to take care of a brick kitchen floor

Q: I live in a 115-year-old duplex home with a brick kitchen floor that the previous owner installed 20 to 25 years ago. I love the floor, but I am not sure how to take care of it. I sweep, vacuum, and get down on my hands and knees several times a year to scrub

Q: I live in a 115-year-old duplex home with a brick kitchen floor that the previous owner installed 20 to 25 years ago. I love the floor, but I am not sure how to take care of it. I sweep, vacuum, and get down on my hands and knees several times a year to scrub it. The floor is old, used brick, and the grout is wide and deeper than the bricks. Walking on the uneven surface is difficult for my elderly mother. Crumbs and dirt accumulate in the grout and are hard to sweep out. In addition, some of the grout has been cracking. Should I call someone to re-grout the floor so it is even with the brick? What kind of professional does this — a ceramic tile company? Should I seal the brick to help maintain it?

A: It is possible to remove grout and redo it. The process is known as repointing, and it's done by masons, not tile installers.

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But trying to make a brick floor smooth by installing new grout is problematic. The floor could end up looking odd, ruining a feature you say you love. And the mortar could wind up even more crack-prone than what you have now. When masons install grout, they run a tool over it that creates a recessed surface, usually concave. This is not just decoration. “It consolidates the mortar and forces some of it to go into the brick on either side,” said Charles B. “Chip” Clark Jr., vice president of engineering services for the Brick Industry Association, a trade group. That locks the mortar to the brick and helps keep the mortar (which is the weaker partner in the floor) from cracking.

To install mortar level with the bricks, the mason would need to tool the joints very lightly. That might be sufficient for a brick floor that rests on concrete, because the base is solid. But when the support structure under the brick is wood — as it is likely to be in your duplex, given its vintage — the floor will flex, and mortar that wasn’t fully compressed is more likely to crack, Clark said. (Flexing of the floor is the likely cause of your current cracks.)

If you do decide to replace the grout and aim for a smoother floor, Clark said, it's essential to hire someone who has experience in repointing and doesn't grind out grout in a way that damages the brick. The grout should be removed to a depth that is twice the width of the joints, so if your floor has  
joints that are three-eighths of an inch wide, they would need to be cleaned out three-fourths of an inch deep. It would be wise to coat the tops of the bricks with a water-repellent wax before the mortar goes in, to help prevent mortar smears. Sponging off smeared mortar would be more difficult than usual because the mortar would be flush with the bricks.

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If providing a smoother surface for your mother is important, a better solution might be to invest in interlocking floor tiles that don’t use adhesive and are designed to work over uneven surfaces. The tiles attach to each other and aren’t glued to the floor. So you could later pull up the flooring and instantly restore the look you have now.

If you do a Web search for “interlocking floor tiles,” you will find numerous examples, although some marketed as gym flooring specifically state that they aren’t to be used in kitchens.

For $4 a square foot, the website placengo.com (508-583-3200) offers 18½-inch squares without a warning against use in kitchens. Tom Ricciardelli, the president, said the tiles have built-in underlayment that makes them workable even over the texture differences of a brick floor. You would need detailing at doorways to accommodate the added thickness, about five-eighths of an inch.

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If you don't replace the mortar or cover the brick, would sealing help? Sealing brick does make it easier to clean. Penetrating sealers, which sink in, help guard against stains. And film-forming sealers, which coat the surface, fill small gaps in the grout and brick, helping crumbs and other spills to stay loose on the surface, where they are easy to vacuum away. So it might seem that a film-forming finish would help with your issues. But is this really what you want? The problem is that the finish won't last forever, especially on a floor in a room that is used a lot. When it's time to re-coat — which could be in just a few years, depending on how much traffic your kitchen gets — you might need to strip the old finish before you can get a new coat to adhere well and not look cloudy. Stripping involves nasty chemicals. "Thus, an existing coating may have to remain in place until it wears off," the Brick Industry Association warns in a primer about coating brick floors and walls.

Applying a water-repellent wax periodically is a good idea, but beyond that, the best way to care for a brick floor is probably what you are doing now: Vacuum regularly, with occasional deep cleaning. Many people would be thrilled at having to scrub the kitchen floor just several times a year.

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