Removating old Marble Flagstones in West-Sussex
Apologies in advance but I’m going to start this post with a warning; there are some very strong cleaning products available in supermarkets and most of which are completely unsuitable for use on natural stone floors because they contain acid. Even weak acids used over time will erode and reduce the life of a sealer and can lead to small holes appearing in your tiles so you do need to be careful what you apply and always read the label.
The reason I mention this is I recently had a client in the village of Woodmancote with a Marble Tiled En-Suite who had sent over some photographs showing how the tiles had become marked after using Cilit Bang to clean them. Cilit Bang is a very strong product and has a great reputation for tackling tricky cleaning problems however it contains Benzenesulfonic Acid so it should not to be used on Stone. If you check the literature it does not say it can be used on stone although it does mention the product can be used on tiles and I suspect this is where the confusion comes from as I suspect it should say ceramic tiles.
Getting back to the story I informed the client that it was tricky to tell from the photographs what would be required so I offered to pop round when next in the area and take a look. We offer a free no obligation home-survey so I arranged a site inspection and after the meeting I was confident that I could repair the damage to a level that meant that that it would be barely noticeable to the naked eye.
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Polishing Marble Shower Tiles
To resolve the problems I started by giving the Marble Tiles a general clean with a dilution of Tile Doctor Pro Clean and then followed this up by burnishing the stone with a 6 inch coarse diamond burnishing pad fitted to a hand held rotary machine. After going over the damaged area with this I then used the medium, find and super fine pads to restore the surface and build up the polish in the stone.
Sealing Marble Shower Tiles
When this was complete and I was satisfied that I had done all that was possible I waited for the Marble to dry and applied two coats of Tile Doctor Ultra Seal which is a penetrating sealer that will occupy the pores in the stone and prevent dirt become ingrained there. When the sealer was dry I gave it a light buff using a small Green pad. This added to the sheen and improved the way the Marble blended in with the surrounding Marble.
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It would have been impossible to get rid of the stain entirely but I’m happy to say by the time I had finished you could not notice the marks unless you looked at the area at point blank range and you knew where to look!
Source: Tile, Stone and Grout Restoration Service in West-Sussex