Most grout that is in your bathroom, shower, toilets, and kitchen are cement based and porous. Most builders and contractors don’t bother actually sealing your grout, which means that the grout will actually be absorbing any liquid that gets on it. The types of moisture that it will absorbing will be:

• Water
• Soap
• Body Oils

Of these, the body oils are by far the most common caused of discolouration of your grout lines.

There are a few ways that you can help to prevent staining or discolouration of your grout lines. Your first option, recommended by Mike Holmes, is to tint your grout so that it matches the tiles, and thus hides any discolouration. The other option is to seal your grout …

There are two types of grout sealers that you can use:

1. Surface Barrier Sealant
2. Penetrating or Impregnator Sealant

Your surface barrier sealant does just what it says, it create a barrier that sits on top of your grout. This type of grout sealers is generally easier to work with than a penetrating barrier, but it is not as effective, and requires regular reapplication.

A penetrating sealant soaks into the pores of the grout to form a barrier against any moisture getting into, and behind the grout. Although it requires more work to apply, and generally costs more than a barrier seal, it is generally considered to be the best option for most uses. This is why we are using a penetrating sealer in our bathrooms.

Having a look at the Bunnings web-site shows us five different types of penetrating grout sealer. They are:

• DTS Heavy Duty Grout Sealer
• Diggers Sealant Showercoat
• CPC Shower Plug Sealant
• Davco Tile & Grout Sealer
• Bondall Tile & Grout Sealer

There are a few different types of grout sealer that you can get, including water based and solvent based sealers. Of those options, the solvent based sealers seem to be your best option. Right away this eliminates two of the five sealers that Bunnings offers …

Of the three products that are left I really can not find any difference between them, other than the price. They vary from:

• $12.00 for 500ml of the Davco Sanitized Tile @ Grout Sealer
• $18.00 for 500ml of the Diggers Showercoat
• $46.50 for 220ml of the CPC Sealant Shower Plug

No matter how much I read, I can not justify the extra cost of the CPC Sealant Shower Plug product. It looks like it’s a penetrating solvent /silicone based sealer, just like the other Davco and Diggers products.

With all of that in mind, I recommend the Davco Sanitized Tile & Grout Sealer, and will most likely be using that one to seal the shower stalls in our bathrooms…

I finally had someone explain to me why we were getting staining on our ceiling around the exhaust vent in the bathroom. My wife and I had thrown around a few different ideas like:

• improper seals around the roof vent
• insufficient vent strength
• condensation in the attic
• improper ventilation
• leaking pipes

After the bathroom ceiling fan starting to rattle on the weekend I decided it was time to replace the exhaust fan. I figured while I was replacing one fan I might as well replace them all as they are all old and they don’t actually clear the steam from the bathrooms during showers.

When I was there purchasing the new exhaust fans I was told why our current fans and ventilation is leaving a stain on the ceiling. The problem is that the ventilation is not insulated. This causes condensation to form on the outside of the pipe and run down the pipe to the bathroom ceiling.

Then I install the new bathroom exhaust fans I will be insulating all the exhaust vents in the attic with either spray foam insulation like in the photo from the Ask the Builder article about bathroom fan ventilation, or by wrapping it in standard pink batt insulation.

The basement vent so far has proven difficult to put in as I need to work from underneath between the basement ceiling and the main floor. There isn’t much room to work in and it’s been hard to attach the ducting to the fan in the limited area before attaching the electrical. I’m hoping that working in the attic for the top two fans will be easier, but I haven’t been in the attic for our new house yet, so we will see what is up there soon enough …

Since getting our new bathtub and actually being able to have deep baths we have discovered that we never have enough water . The reason for that is that our hot water system is a electric storage type and it’s only 125L!

According to this hot water usage chart 125L on the off-peak electrical tariff, which we have it on, doesn’t even register as being usable, it rates as N/A. If you have it on the continuous electrical tariff it is still only good for 2 – 3 people, but that tariff costs over twice as much to run.
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