sealing

Limestone Kitchen Floor Stains After Sealing

Limestone Kitchen Floor refinished near Staines

This wonderful Limestone tiled floor was installed in the kitchen of a house near the town Staines where it had become dirty and tired, helped I might add by the customers dog who loved to swim in rivers and get muddy at every opportunity. The customer was struggling to clean the floor, the grout lines wouldn’t come clean and after spending hours scrubbing with a tooth brush and getting nowhere she called Tile Doctor.

Deep Cleaning the Limestone Tiled Floor

The floor was clearly in need of a deep clean and re-seal a very mild dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean applied liberally across the floor and allowed to dwell and penetrate through the soils engrained into the grout. The grout lines were scrubbed with a specialist grout brush to release the soil and a rotary machine with a nylon deck scrubbing brush was used to release the soils from the Limestone tiles.

Limestone Kitchen Floor Stains Before Cleaning Limestone Kitchen Floor Stains Before Cleaning

After approximately half an hour of scrubbing, the Limestone floor was extraction cleaned using our truck mounted clean and capture system. This system combines heat, pressure, and vacuum extraction to gently blast engrained soils away from the limestone and the grout lines.

Limestone Kitchen Floor Stains During Cleaning Limestone Kitchen Floor Stains High Pressure Machine

To get the Limestone really clean a two pad diamond burnishing process was used; normally we use four pads however the customer did not want the stone to be too shiny and reflection was already starting to happen after the second pad had been applied. Using diamonds to refinish calcium stone such as marble, travertine and limestone is the modern chemical free solution to restoring the surface of sedimentary stones.

Limestone Kitchen Floor Stains During Cleaning Limestone Kitchen Floor Stains During Cleaning

Sealing the Limestone Floor

After deep clean and refinishing the surface of the limestone, it was allowed to dry for a period of 36 hours, after this a liberal coat of Colour Grow which is a solvent based impregnator was applied to the stone. The sealer was allowed to sit on the surface of the stone for approximately 5 minutes before the excess was buffed away. Buffing the excess away is important to ensure a great, smear free finish.

Limestone Kitchen Floor Stains During Sealing Limestone Kitchen Floor Stains After Sealing

Before leaving we recommended a system to care for the floor to ensure is continues to look as good as the day we left. Also we recently contact the client to check everything was ok and I’m proud to confirm they are still really pleased with the floor and after professional cleaning and sealing is now finding the floor is much easier to clean and maintain herself.

Deep Cleaning Limestone Floor Near Stains

Limestone Kitchen Floor refinished near Staines Read More »

Limestone sign after cleaning reading

Limestone Sign Wall Cleaning at Reading Business Park

This was an unusual request to clean a large Limestone wall used to mount a sign at a Reading Business Park that had been installed approximately 8 to 10 years prior and never cleaned. The old sign had been removed from the stone which had exposed the unprotected areas of stone leaving a shadow. Pollutants, carbon soils, road dirt and weathering had discoloured the Limestone and the client was unable to get it satisfactorily clean. You can see from the photo below how obviously dirty the stone had become.

Limestone sign before cleaning reading

Deep Cleaning a Limestone Wall

To get the Limestone cleaned I applied a liberal 50:50 dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean with a roller brush and allowed it to dwell for on the stone for around twenty minutes.

Limestone sign during cleaning reading
The chemicals got to work on the dirt whilst I set up our truck mounted medium pressure hot water clean and capture system which uses a twin rotary jet system to fire hot water at 90 degrees at 1200psi onto the stone in a circular spinning motion. It’s a great tool that immediately vacuums the waste water away to a separate tank in the van. This mess free clean and capture system is self-contained and doesn’t require the disposal of hot water or dirty water on site either. Using the tool I was able to blast away the soils and pollutants from the stone and then left it to dry.

Limestone sign after cleaning reading

Sealing the Limestone Wall

When I returned I checked the stone was dry, fortunately it hadn’t rained and the sun and wind had dried it out well. To seal the Limestone I used Tile Doctor Colour Grow which is an impregnating sealer that occupies the pores in the stone to prevent contaminates discolouring it, additionally it’s suitable for internal and external applications and has the added effect of enhancing the natural colour in the stone. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to take a final photograph once it was sealed due to a rather irritating traffic warden.

Cleaning and Sealing Limestone Sign Wall in Reading

Limestone Sign Wall Cleaning at Reading Business Park Read More »

Antalya Limestone After Cleaning

Cleaning Antalya Limestone Tiles in Reading

I don’t mind a few stairs but these Antalya Limestone tiles were installed in a flat at the top of a three storey residential block in Reading with no lift. The sealer had worn down over time which was making the floor hard to clean and always looking dirty.

Cleaning a Limestone Tiled Floor

To clean the floor we applied a solution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean which is a heavy duty alkaline cleaning product specially designed for cleaning stone floors. This was left to dwell for a while and then agitated using a rotary machine fitted with a Black Scrubbing pad. The soiled solution was then removed using a wet vacuum and the floor was then rinsed down with fresh clean water.

Antalya Limestone During Cleaning

Limestone Tiled Floor Polishing

We used a set of diamond encrusted Twister Burnishing Pads fitted to a rotary buffing machine to polish the Limestone floor. These pads are ideal for restoring the shine on hard stone surfaces such as Limestone and Marble, the come in a set of four and you start with the Red pad together with plain water and this cuts through and removes surface grime and any surface seal. You then progress through one by one until you get to the final Green pad which provides a high polish.

Sealing Limestone Tiles

Once the floor was dry I sealed it using two coats of Tile Doctor Pro-Seal which is a penetrating sealer that provides a natural look and will help protect the floor going forward.

Antalya Limestone After Cleaning
 

Restoring Antalya Limestone Tile in Berkshire

Cleaning Antalya Limestone Tiles in Reading Read More »

Travertine Floor Completed

Travertine Tiles Replaced and Polished in Ascot

The owner of this home in Ascot had 75m2 of travertine tiles installed on the ground floor and around 10 tiles were damaged and needed replacement; this can be difficult as like most things tiles are created in batches and it can be tricky to find an exact match. Fortunately we managed to source a very close match and set about installing them.

Travertine Floor Laid

Cleaning Travertine Tiles and Grout

To get the match as close as possible we then set about giving the whole floor a general clean using Tile Doctor Pro-Clean which is a multi-purpose cleaner, it was equally important to concentrate on the grout of the existing floor which needed to be clean to match the new grout of the new floor. Cleaning the floor also ensures any grit is removed from the tile surface prior to the next step which was to polish the floor using a set of Burnishing pads, this is important as grit could get trapped in the burnishing pads and scratch the floor. We washed the floor down with clean water using a wet vacuum to remove the water from the floor before moving onto the next step.

Travertine Floor Before Burnishing

Polishing and Sealing Travertine Floor Tiles

We polished the floor using a set of 17” Burnishing pads fitted to our weighted polishing machine; the pads are diamond encrusted and you start with the coarser Red pad designed to remove sealers before moving on to the White, Yellow and finally Green polishing pad to achieve a high shine finish.

The last step was to seal the floor which we did using two coats of Tile Doctor Colour Grow which is colour intensifying sealer that enhancing the natural colours in the Travertine tile as well as providing on-going durable surface protection.

Travertine Floor Completed
We polished and sealed the entire floor to ensure a consistent look; the customer was certainly happy and left the following comment.

“Overall a good job well done. Thank you.
Mr. Wilkinson, Ascot”

 

Travertine Tiles Replaced and Polished in Ascot

Travertine Tiles Replaced and Polished in Ascot Read More »

Moroccan Leather Limestone WC After Cleaning

Restoring Moroccan Leather Limestone Tiles in Salisbury

We were asked to sort out these beautiful “Moroccan Leather” Limestone floor tiles in the kitchen and WC of a house in Salisbury which had had been badly installed by the contractor. If you look closely at the photographs you can see grout residue (also known as Grout Haze) had been left on the surface of the tile ruining its appearance.

Removing Grout Haze

The most effective way to remove grout from the tile surface is with an acidic product such as Tile Doctor Grout Clean-up, you have to be careful not to leave it on the surface too long and wash the floor down with water afterwards as acids can eat through natural stone.

Moroccan Leather Limestone Kitchen Before Cleaning Moroccan Leather Limestone WC Before Cleaning

Cleaning and Sealing Limestone Tiles

Once the grout haze was removed we set about giving the tiles a good clean using Tile Doctor Pro-Clean washing it down again with clean water before giving it a polish using a Green polishing pad to get a high shine finish.

There are a numbers of sealers you can use on Limestone each one can give a different effect, in this case we used two coats of Tile Doctor Colour Grow which really enhances the natural colours in the stone.

Moroccan Leather Limestone Kitchen After Cleaning Moroccan Leather Limestone WC After Cleaning

The floor was completely transformed and think you will agree now looks amazing

Grout Haze removed from Limestone Tiles restored in Salisbury

Restoring Moroccan Leather Limestone Tiles in Salisbury Read More »

Travertine Tile Replaced and Polished

Replacing Damaged Travertine floor tiles and Polish in Ascot

This job involved removing and replacing five damaged Travertine floor tiles which can be tricky if you have under floor heating. The travertine floor was laid in the kitchen of a house in the town of Ascot which is famous for horse racing.

Removing the Damaged Travertine floor tiles

As you can see from the photograph below we set about marking up the damaged tiles and then proceeded to cut along the lines with an angle grinder which was fitted with a dust free extraction system. Once the bulk of the travertine was removed we used a hammer and chisel to carefully chop out the remaining edges, grout and tile adhesive. This left large holes to take the replacement tiles which were still available and were secured in place with tile adhesive and matching grout, we left the floor at this point to allow the adhesive and grout to dry.

Damaged Travertine Tile

Cleaning and Polishing Travertine Tiles

The next step was to strip and polish the entire floor using a set of diamond encrusted Burnishing Pads fitted to a rotary machine. You start with a Red stripper pad with water to remove any sealers, moving onto the White, Yellow and finally Green pad which polishes the floor to a high shine. The last step was to seal the floor using two coats of Tile Doctor Colour Grow which brings out the colour in natural stone as well as providing durable stain protection.

The re-polishing and sealing really helped to let the new Travertine tiles blend into the floor, take a look at the finished result in the photograph below and see if you can spot the replaced tiles.

Travertine Tile Replaced and Polished
 

Broken Travertine Tile Replacement in Berkshire

Replacing Damaged Travertine floor tiles and Polish in Ascot Read More »

Travertine Floor before and after Repolishing

Travertine Floor Re-polish in Hook

Photographs below of a Travertine tiled floor we were asked to re-polish in the kitchen of a house in the village of Hook in Hampshire. The main problem was the floor had been sealed very badly and made worse when the tiler tried to rectify the problem leaving a dull and stained floor.

Travertine Floor Before Repolishing

Stripping and Re-Polishing Travertine

To strip the sealer from the floor and get it back to the original condition we used a set of diamond encrusted Burnishing Pads fitted to a rotary machine. You start with a Red stripper pad with water to remove the sealer, moving onto the White, Yellow and Green pads which polish the floor. Once the surface was restored we applied two coats of Tile Doctor Pro-Seal which is a premium, no-sheen, natural look, water based, penetrating sealer formulated to provide maximum stain protection to the Travertine and the Grout.

The customer was over the moon at the finish and I’m sure the tiler breathed a big sigh of relief as well.

Travertine Floor After Repolishing
 

Re-Polishing a Travertine tiled kitchen floor in Hook, Hampshire

Travertine Floor Re-polish in Hook Read More »

Scroll to Top