I ordered a grout called "smoke" from flextile. The installed grout looks like their "ivory". I have been told that during the cleanup too much water was used and the dark pigment was washed away. They left me a half bag of the grout powder. When I pour some of the powder on the installed grout it matches exactly in colour. The colour installed matches their brochure's "ivory" colour.

This water explanation does not make sense to me. Can someone comment?

Naive Customer

This does happen unfortunately. Mixing the grout too wet in the first place, and then using too much water during clean up can cause this problem. Sometimes the lighter colour is just on the surface of the grout. When you wet the grout joints, is it back to the colour you wanted?

Yes Brian, when I wet the grout, it is almost as dark as the colour ordered. But when it dries it goes back to the light colour. The grout was cleaned twice by the installer, immediately after installation. The floor was covered in grout after the second cleaning. I was told to wait 24 hours before cleaning the tile. I cleaned the tile the next day, but there is lots of grout on the tile that I cannot remove. Can cleaning almost 24 hours later take out the colour? Is the colour of the powdered grout in the bag, the colour of the final grout?

If the installer cleaned it twice, there should have been almost nothing for you to wash off the next day. Grouting is almost as important as laying the tile itself. If you do a bad job grouting, it's the first thing you notice. Unfortunately, everyones in a hurry these days, so the grout goes in and is washed off as fast as possible, and out the door to the next job. If you still have grout stuck to the floor tile, then you might want to try giving the floor a wash with a 50/50 solution of water and white vinegar. You can use a nylon scrub pad too, to help remove the grout haze. This very light acid wash(vinegar is acid) might even bring back some of the colour to the joints, since it will remove some of the efflorescence on the surface of the grout joint. After you wash it, you can rinse the floor with clear water. If this doesn't bring back the grout colour, then there is another thing you could try. You should seal the grout joints anyway, so using a grout enhancer sealer would help to bring back some of the colour(not all though) This sealer will turn the grout joint the same colour as when you wet in with water, but it will be a bit lighter when the sealer drys. Anyway, try the vinegar wash first, and see how that turns out.

i don't know but I'm going to guess these tiles were laid on a concrete floor w/ a high calcium/salt content. What that means is the efflorescence is travelling up like it likes to, through all cementious materials(thinset,grout), and settling right there on top. If this is salt, which this has happened to me, the easiest way to fix it is to get some epxy grout paint to match your color you wanted;
:http://www.aquamix.com/for_home_use/products/pg_detail.asp?pdid=34037&pgid=8374
Aqua Mix is good. the white will almost never go away for sure if thats what you have. But you can probably paint 200 SqFt in about a couple hours. I use a peice of a sponge to float/rub it into the grout, let it sit about 5 real minutes, then scrub/wash it off of the tile edge and it should stay on the grout.try to work so that you can wash what you've spread in about half the time of the coloring, so it doesn't get too hard to clean off. It says it lasts 15 years...

when you get salt wet, it gets clear, thats why it dissappears when you wash it, when it dries, it gets white again...

One other thing about grout is that depending on the MFG it can have up to or over37 ingrediants in it and the pigment is the heaviest so unless you dry mix with every batch you can experience color differences/ Please make sure you "shake and bake" b4 adding water
have fun and thanks