Grout Doctor Has Cure For Tired Tiles

Hairspray, soap scum and hard water. These are grout's greatest enemies in bathrooms, says Dennis Baran, owner of the Grout Doctor in St. Charles. In kitchens, it's grease and oils. Elsewhere in the house, grout does not agree with asphalt or road salt tracked in from the driveway, candle wax or pet urine.

But grout's most common household enemy, Baran says, is improper cleaning.

"People use highly acidic products, which break down the sealant on the grout," he says. "Or they don't rinse the water often enough and the residue destroys the sealant and grout. The best cleaner: 2 tablespoons vinegar per one-gallon water." Baran repairs and replaces grout, which he tells clients, is the stuff between the tiles, not the stuff on the seam between the tub and the tilework. "Most people don't know grout from caulk," explains Baran, a St.

Charles resident. "A big part of my job is education." Before scheduling his clients, Baran triages their projects. "A leaking shower in a one-bathroom house is an emergency," he says. "Discolored grout in a hallway is not." But, he tries to reach each client with an estimate within three days.

Some of Baran's calls are from homeowners wanting him to repair their grout before they put their homes up for sale. "They want a quick fix," he says.

"But I won't Band-Aid it. They should either sell the house as is or fix it right." The quality of the tiler's workmanship affects the condition of the grout more than the age of the house, says Baran. "I've seen 50-year-old houses with sturdy grout and 5-year-old houses with grout that's deteriorating," he says.

Grout has changed over the years, though, from being more cement-based to more latex-based. "Those old grouts from the '30s to '50s last forever but are a nightmare to get out because they're mostly cement," Baran explains.

"The new ones don't last as long but are very user-friendly." Not all grout needs to be replaced. "Sometimes people think they need new grout, but all they need is cleaning and re-coloring," Baran explains.

But cracked grout may need to be replaced. Then Baran uses a hand-held, vibrating power tool and utility knife to scrape away the original grout, stopping regularly to brush the waste into a dustpan and dump it into a plastic garbage bag. He washes the cavity, then uses a rubber float to apply new grout.

In a bathtub or shower stall, it isn't unusual for the bottom row of tiles to need to be re-installed. The culprit is usually rotted greenboard behind the tiles. Baran removes the grout and tiles, cleans off the mold that is typically growing on the back of the tiles, and replaces the greenboard with its superior, cementboard, with screws. ("Better than nails, which wiggle over time," he says.) Then he applies the tiles with mastic and re-grouts between them.

Between jobs, Baran fields calls from other franchisees on his cell phone.

As shareholders and directors of training for the parent company, Grout Doctor Global Franchise, Baran and his wife, Michal, counsel trainees. He owns three of the company's franchises, which means his territory extends from Lombard to DeKalb and South Elgin to the Plainfield/Naperville border.

Baran's company has three grout doctors in the field, including himself. The ideal new-hire, he says, is someone who looks at the work as a career, not a job.

This is a second career for Baran, who spent 30 years in food service before buying into this company in 2001. After collecting a bachelor's degree in hotel/restaurant management and a master's degree in education, he taught food service, then ran a trio of bakeries in the Fox Valley.

Baran learned about this trade for the same reason his clients do. "My shower stall was leaking," he recalls. "I hired a handyman to fix it, and it still leaked. So read about the Grout Doctor and decided to become trained.

I thought that I could at least fix my own shower." Off-duty, Baran relaxes by reading collector-car magazines and attending car shows. His dream purchase, he says, is a 1968 Shelby GT500 convertible--in red, please. Once a year, he and his wife retreat to their favorite vacation spot, Hawaii.

Retirement is not in the cards, Baran says. Down the road, he might hang up his rubber knee pads and delegate the manual work to his staff, he says.

But the self-described "workaholic" intends to stay at the helm of his healthy business.

"As long as builders keep putting in tiles, I'll have plenty of work," he says.

- - - One on one with Dennis Baran Q. What's the life span of grout in a tiled shower? A. With today's grout, it is seven to 10 years, based on two showers a day.

If you have teenagers in there, it won't last as long. But if your kids are grown and you spend half the year in Florida, it will last 10 to 15 years.

You can make the grout last longer by sealing it yourself or having us do it. But few people know this or do it.

Q. How about the tiles? A. The tiles last forever unless they take a direct hit by something heavy, like a ketchup bottle falling out of the refrigerator or a pot of water from the sink. But it's hard to find replacements.

There's a lot of planned obsolescence in tiles--the manufacturers change colors, sizes and patterns often. So I tell homeowners when they buy new tiles, always buy a case of extras. I've seen people have to put in whole new floors because they couldn't find replacement tiles.

Q. What are the misconceptions about your business? A. Some people think we lay tile. Some ask us to do other jobs at their houses while we're there. One lady asked me to fix her garbage disposal. But we just do what we know, and we know grout.

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