A supplier who recommends a floor system without asking how the tile joints get cleaned is selling you a material, not a solution. In a working kitchen, the grout line is the part that fails first: it collects grease, it traps moisture under the tile bed, and it is scrubbed daily with methods that can destroy a bond that was initially sound. Before any equipment or floor recommendation is accepted, the questions below should be asked, answered on paper, and matched to the cleaning method you actually run.
1. What does the cleaning crew do to the floor today?
Ask for the current routine, not a policy document: mop and bucket, auto-scrubber, pressure washer, degreaser plus deck brush, and how many times per shift. Frequency decides grout wear far more than the floor area does. A kitchen that scrubs joints three times a shift does not need the same specification as a servery line cleaned once a day. If the routine is manual scrubbing with a caustic detergent and a stiff brush, no grout specification will hold for long, because the detergent and the brush are removing the surface every week.
Useful equipment answer: a machine that applies heat and controls water makes the routine shorter and less aggressive. Our PowerDe steam cleaning machine range is built for this kind of repeat duty, where water volume and dwell time are controlled rather than flooded across the floor.
2. What is the grease load, and where does it enter the floor?
Ask what is cooked, how much, and in which zone. Fryers and charbroilers throw aerosolised oil that lands on floors and in joints several metres from the appliance. Griddles and salamanders produce a thinner, harder film. A bakery or prep kitchen has almost no grease load and needs a different cleaning chemistry than a wok line. The supplier should walk the line and point at the zones, because the answer determines whether a joint is being cleaned of food residue or of polymerised oil.
Polymerised grease is where heat earns its keep. Hot water softens the film so it can be lifted; cold water with detergent usually just moves it into the next joint. For joints that have gone dark and tacky, treat them as commercial kitchen floor degreasing work rather than routine mopping, and expect the machine specification — steam temperature, output, tank capacity, and power supply — to matter more than the cleaning product chosen.
3. Is there power, water and drainage at the point of cleaning?
This is the question that most often kills a good recommendation after purchase. Ask what supply is available where the cleaning actually happens: 220 V single phase or three phase, socket location and cable run, distance to a water inlet, and where the rinse water goes. A fixed unit parked in a store room is only useful if a 20 m cable and a hose run across a wet kitchen floor is acceptable to the kitchen manager — it usually is not, and it is a slip hazard.
Ask the supplier to write down the required electrical load against what the site can provide, and to state the water inlet type. On our fixed machines the inlet is a standard tap-water connection, and the working voltage is 220 V, which suits most retrofitted kitchens where no three-phase supply exists at floor level.
4. When can cleaning happen — during service, after service, or overnight?
Ask what the floor can be taken out of service for, and how fast it must be walkable again. If cleaning has to happen between shifts, the deciding factor is not cleaning power but drying time and residue. A method that leaves a wet, slippery floor for two hours is not usable in a kitchen that opens at seven. Steam-based cleaning uses comparatively little water, so the floor is usually walkable much sooner than after pressure washing or wet mopping — which is why it is often the practical choice for kitchens with no overnight cleaning window.
Ask for the answer as a number: minutes from finish to safe foot traffic, tested on your own floor, not on a showroom tile.
5. What is the tile bed condition under the joints?
Ask whether the floor was laid with a full bed of adhesive and whether the substrate is sound. Grout is the visible symptom; the failure is usually water that got under the tiles and attacked the bedding. A machine that uses a lot of water will make a bad tile bed worse. So the honest question is not only "what cleans the joint" but "what keeps water out of the assembly". This is where a low-water method and a controlled application become a floor-protection decision, not just a hygiene one.
6. What chemical is being used, and what does it do to the joint surface?
Ask for the product name and dilution, and ask what the manufacturer says about grout and sealers. Strong alkaline degreasers and acid descalers both shorten grout life, and frequent use of both is a common pattern in kitchens that keep a bright floor by stripping the joint surface. Then ask what happens to slip resistance when detergent residue is left in the joints. If the answer is "we rinse", ask how, because that is where rinse water volume becomes a floor-safety issue.
7. Who does the work, and how skilled are they?
Ask who will actually operate the equipment: a trained cleaning contractor on a planned visit, or kitchen staff at the end of a shift with no training. Contractors will accept a machine with real controls and a defined process. Staff need a machine that is hard to misuse — one setting, obvious safety interlocks, and a wand that reaches the joints without kneeling. A specification that depends on operator skill you do not have will be abandoned within a month, and the grout will tell you.
Ask the supplier to provide written operating steps in the language your team speaks, and to demonstrate the process on your floor once. If a supplier will not do that, treat it as a product-only vendor and price accordingly.
8. What is the maintenance route when the machine fails?
Ask what fails, what spare parts you should hold, and how fast a service engineer can attend. Then ask what the machine does when water supply drops or the heating element runs hot — the protection functions matter in a kitchen where a fault at 2 a.m. means the floor is not cleaned before service. On our fixed units, protection against leakage, short circuit, high temperature, high voltage and water shortage is built in as part of the machine, not as an optional accessory.
9. What evidence should the supplier give you before you commit?
Ask for a trial on one bay of your own kitchen, and measure three things: how much time the crew spends, how dry the floor is afterwards, and what the joints look like at the end of the trial. Ask the supplier to state the machine specification they recommend for that trial and why — tank capacity, heating power, steam temperature, pressure and voltage — rather than sending a catalogue. A supplier who recommends floor equipment should be able to explain how the cleaning method protects the floor they laid or specify.
10. Get the whole chain on one sheet
Before you order, put the answers in one place: the cleaning task, the soil type, the cleaning window, the available power and water, the drainage route, the operator, and the acceptable drying time. Then ask the supplier to confirm their recommendation against those answers in writing. If a supplier cannot connect the floor they recommend to the cleaning method you will actually run, you are buying a specification that has no chance of surviving service.
Shenzhen PowerDe Automation Precision Equipment is an intelligent cleaning equipment manufacturer working with kitchen, transport, industrial and facility operators on machines matched to those conditions. If you want a cleaning method specified against the site constraints above, contact us with your floor area, soil type, cleaning window and available power supply, and we will specify from that.
