How to Quickly Repair Cracked Grout: An Easy Step by Step Guide

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As a homeowner is there anything more annoying than those tedious little repairs that seem to crop up ALL THE TIME? They’re inevitable, and we know we need to fix them, but sometimes they just seem so intimidating that they fall straight to the bottom of our to-do list. Where they stay, for a really long time.

That’s exactly how I felt about our cracked grout in our master

Ugh, so annoying!

And I let this tiny little repair intimidate the heck out of

Now, full disclosure, I didn’t actually do this repair

• A multi-tool like this DEWALT one here
• Grout removal blade
• Pre-mixed grout in your color of choice
• Vacuum
• Tile Grout Float
• Tile Sponge

Make sure that any tiles next to the cracked grout are not compromised and moving when you put pressure on them. Most of the time cracked grout is simply that, just broken grout. But there’s also the chance that the cracked grout stems from a tile that may have lifted up from the ground.

So be sure to check your surrounding tiles to make sure none of them have been affected. If they have, you’ll want to remove the tile and re-adhere it to the ground. Here’s a great article from This Old House on how to replace a tile.

Apparently you need a specific blade designed just for grout removal. Good to know since we completely ruined another blade by using it the wrong way on our tiled fireplace makeover. This blade was more curved and much rougher than the other attachments and it helped with grinding into the grout at angles rather than straight down (where you risk breaking or lifting up a tile).

One awesome bonus with this multi-tool is the handy built-in

Before you can remove the cracked, crumbling grout you need

While it’s on, turn your multi tool to the side and begin in

Continue working through the grout in small sections grinding

You’ll want to take a break from grinding down the tile

In the small broken sections of our master bathroom we probably

You can see from the original photos of our cracked tile

Before you can apply any new tile grout you need to give

We chose to use a pre-mixed sanded grout that we already had

Ok, so you’re almost there I promise! Using your tile float,

Be generous with the grout and work into the open grooves.

Use your tile float and wipe over the grout at a slight

You’re probably wondering why our new grout doesn’t match

The last thing you need to do is clean off the fresh grout

And that’s it! Other than waiting for your new grout to set of

My hubby could spot my fingerprint in the fresh grout a mile

For a small repair job like this, about 24 hours is probably

This entire repair took us only 20 minutes to complete. So much

Don’t forget to pin this handy step by step guide for grout repair and check out the amazing transformation of our tiled floor just from painting the grout!

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