Restoration of tiled floor after property maintenance & repairs - Tile Advice

[Bay Cleaners]

Hi all - we are new to this forum but would be glad of some of your expert advice.
We have been asked to clean a property after some maintenance work was carried out. The area we are have a major problem with is in a laundry. The owner thinks the tiles were laid some 30 years ago, and 10 - 12 years ago the original tiles ( red quarry ) were painted over with red tile paint.
The launry roof has been leaking for some years & just before the spell of bad weather we have had recently the roof was removed. Leaving the whole floor area unprotected for around 3 months. With the floor level below that of the building exterior there was no way for the water to be drained off, except by bucket when there was a danger of ingress into the main house, also some 6 inches above the laundry floor. This meant for much of the time the floor had a covering of water.
When weather permitted builders working on site used the area for storing cement, sand etc. & also carried out extensive rendering to the laundry walls & the building exterior above the laundry without protecting the floor in any way.
The owner has tried scraping off the old paint and lumps of render & dried in cement and she wants the tiiles cleaned, but there is so much staining on the tiles which seems to go deep into them we aren't sure if we would be waisting our time & her money in trying to do anything with them.
Have attached some pics for info.Sorry to be so long winded but thought it best to give as much info as possible.
Any help or advice as to how these can be cleaned (if at all) & what products would be best to use would be much appreciated,

 

[MARBLE_TONY]

My advice would be a bit of you can "try to do best but with no guarantees!" the reason being in the circumstances that it has been in the general dirt cement residue etc not a problem. But looking at the photo's it looks like you have efflorescence but also a little bit of spalling which is starting to "split" the tile. Anyway to clean you would need a good stripper and a high alkaline cleaner. this Should get all your ground in dirt then will have to be treated with a efflorescence treatment then you have two choices a clear impregnating sealer (or my choice would be enhancing sealer to attempt to get some colour back) or a topical sealer to give a sheen or high gloss finish. It certainly wont be a two minute job and as all jobs will depend on the budget especially to prevent the efflorescence re-appearing.

 

[Brian the Tile]

try brick acid, should do the job , looks to me like ground in cement try it in a small area just to see if it lifts it ,i would think it will, and make sure you wash the tiles after, when dry give them a good coat of sealer

 

[Rizzle from the Portizzle]

do not try brick acid as this will eat the tile glaze these tiles have already been cleaned with acid in the past and then to hide it they have used the old step paint. the best you can do is wax the floor and hope this brings out the coulour

 

[Brian the Tile]

raytt theese are quarry tiles as far as i can see and also that is what has been said,i dont get what you are saying about the glaze unless i have missed something along the way quarry tles are not glazed and never have been so unless you can prove me wrong brick acid cant eat a glaze that was never there inthe first place believe me the brick acid will cause no damage,what is the point in putting wax over a dirty floor ,beats me ,i really cant understand your post,if you could explain where i have been going wrong over the years please

 

[Bay Cleaners]

Thanks all for the replies, looks as though it's not going to be a piece of cake. We'll give areas that are to be covered with laundry machines sample cleans using various methods, see what the client thinks & take it from there.
Will post results when we're done, assuming the client wants us to go ahead with the whole job.

 

[Rizzle from the Portizzle]

raytt theese are quarry tiles as far as i can see and also that is what has been said,i dont get what you are saying about the glaze unless i have missed something along the way quarry tles are not glazed and never have been so unless you can prove me wrong brick acid cant eat a glaze that was never there inthe first place believe me the brick acid will cause no damage,what is the point in putting wax over a dirty floor ,beats me ,i really cant understand your post,if you could explain where i have been going wrong over the years please

quarry tiles are fired clay when fired this leaves a hard glazed surrface not like on a ceramic while that surface remians you you can clean with acid but once this hardcoat is worn down acid can affect the tiles as they are now open. looking at the tiles above they are showing great wear or cleaned with a strong acid lots of little pits .i would still try to clean them up a bit more ,the wax i would use to fill all the pits in by pasting on then pollishing down might take a few coats but would leave a hard coat on the floor no pits and easy to clean and bring out the coluor .