Barwalt Ultra Grout Cleaning System

Love installing tile, but grouting, eh not so much. So I purchased this grout cleaning system to speed up the task. Unfortunately for me it didn't live up to all the five star reviews. Not sure what I'm doing wrong, but no matter how hard I try the sponge still has way too much water left in it. I literally went back and forth on the rollers for two or three minutes and it still had water left that I could squeeze out with my hands. Maybe I'm being too critical, but too much water while cleaning will lead to grout failure in the long term.

I've been using this same brand among all other brands of grouting systems since they've came out 10 or 15 years ago. Always been super helpful always leaves great and even grout joints. Even though they say you can use them on walls I've never been successful or happy with any grout system. They leave walls to wet . Which washes out your joints ect... but the tool pays for itself on one floor. I've grouted thousands of sqft. With this exact one, other ones and regular sponge aswell. Anyway this was the cheapest one I could find and I could never live without one. It was on my doorstep in like 2 or 3 days.

I was always a sponge and bucket guy. Another installer talked me into trying this system. Tried it on pre-mixed urethane grout powder grout and even lvt really worked well. It really helped keep the joints in the lvt full almost looked like a vinyl sheet floor when I was done.

I'm generally not a review writer, but with this product I will make an acception. After receiving product I had to wait a couple weeks before giving it a go. And when my first grout job came around, I was weary of using it. Due to the material I was grouting was old Chicago brick pavers. These are very porous and absorb water unlike any other material I've installed. Not to mention the 3/8" to 1/2" joints between brick. But I decided to use the grouting system anyway. I figured if it destroyed my sponge , I'd just buy another. I must say, this system worked like a dream. The tooling of grout joints was done in half the time. The final wipe was done in half the time. There were areas I had to wipe with a normal sponge, so I had an opportunity to compare the 2. And if I'd had to do this whole job with that normal sponge, I'd still be there. In the end, job was completed in half the time and the grouting system's sponge is still in tact. I would highly recommend this product. Even for the toughest jobs.

I decided to try this for a 500sf floor tile job and a kitchen backsplash. It was a huge timesaver on the floor tile. The wide floor sponge was great. It was also nice not having to constantly change out water buckets. Combine those two things together and it paid for itself in one day. When doing the kitchen backsplash it was ok. These were linear glass tiles 1" in width. It was great for working the grout joints and removing excess but when it came to cleaning I ended up using my normal sponge. Also the wall sponge adhesive started to fail after about 5 minutes and pretty much rendered it useless. But all in all it was a great purchase for floors. For backsplashes I'll try it again but I'm not counting on it.