Very macho conversation guys, & all the numbers & decimal points are very impressive, especially to a math-challenged gal like me. Hey Stinky-gardener-- It has nothing to do with math, or trying to be impressive. If you go into a tile showroom, and ASK about how slippery any specific tile is, that is how they will be rated. If you want to understand what the salesman is trying to tell you, those are the numbers you will be dealing with. It's a rating system, not the quadratic equation. Claire-- I had a discussion with the VP of Laticrete about 2 weeks ago about those non-slip coatings, because he'd heard I'd recommended them to someone. He told me that they don't last, and that they end up making the tiles look pretty nasty, because they tend to catch the dirt in areas where there's not quite as much traffic, and then in the high traffic areas, it wears off, which means either stripping off the coating from the rest of the floor, or recoating right over what's there already, and you can imagine what that starts to look like after a while. I can't say one way or another from personal experience. But I trust this guy from Laticrete. He's seen a whole lot more tile situations than I have, from all over the world, and I've known him personally all my life (our families were close), so I know he wouldn't steer me wrong.

There are hard-surface floor cleaners available that have brushes, and can wash/brush the tile (and grout, to some degree), then rinse, then vacuum up the dirty rinse water. One of the main reasons that grout gets dirty, other than dropping messy stuff on it *smile*, is that the floor gets mopped, and the dirty mop water is left on the grout. You can clean in similar ways by hand, but the floor cleaning machines make it easier. Can't say too much about using dark colored grout as well, of course *smile*. -Roger

Also, I forgot. Sometimes paint remover works well.

Grout hasn’t changed much, and neither has grout care. There are three categories of grout: cementitious, epoxy, and furan. Most of us have cementitious grout (with or without latex). For that, clean tiles and grout with dilute detergent and water. Remember to seal your grout (once it’s dry) annually. Epoxy grout does not have to be sealed, but it can stain; if I’d does, you can brighten it with a dilute bleach or dilute vinegar. Furan is usually black and used in floors in industrial applications.