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In the bathroom of our new house, the grout between our tiles in the shower room seem to have occasional "bubbles" or gaps and I'm concerned that it might allow water in, especially since this is inside the cubicle and the shower blasts water right onto this area. The are dozens of these little holes all over the tiled area, but I've taken a photo and highlighted just a few as an example:

damaged grouting

I'm guessing that this is a result of poor workmanship, but can this easily be repaired without re-grouting the whole wall, or am I worrying about nothing?

ninesided
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2 Answers2

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Yes, in all likelihood this can be repaired fairly easily. It is a good possibility that these holes are due to poor quality work where the original grout was not fully squeezed down into the joints. You may find other areas that are not yet broken open but also just a partial penetration into the joint.

You will have to work carefully to replace with like style grout material to minimize color differences of the repair.

If I was repairing this I would dig out around these breakout areas back to where the adjacent grout is sound and well penetrated into the joint. Also clean the edges of the tiles in the opened out areas too. Since there is also the possibility that water and soap scum have entered these holes you would want to take steps to clean away that as well before attempting to re-grout the repair areas.

Michael Karas
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Yes just add more grout in. Not a huge deal but really looks like a rush job. Look in basement or storage to see if they left any grout bags. If they didn't don't just use whatever grout. Mix a small batch and let it dry and make sure it is the same color.

If you chip off a piece of grout that is by one of your gaps you can bring a sample to the store. It is white sanded grout though and there are like 20 whites in sanded... So this might be trying 2-3 different colors. Worst case is you have a slightly different shade here.

Also there is grout coloring that you can apply over the whole area. This would be easy if your shades were just a tad off. This is probably going overboard for a few issues like yours.

DMoore
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