limestone tiles Archives - Cambridge Tile Doctor

Limestone Tiled Kitchen Floor Cleaning Sealing Hauxton

Dirty Limestone Tiled Floor Deep Cleaned and Sealing in Hauxton

These photographs are from a Limestone tiled floor in the Kitchen of a property in the village of Hauxton south of Cambridge. The client was fed up with it constantly looking dirty and decided something must be done.

Limestone Tiled Kitchen Floor Before Cleaning Hauton

This is a common problem with Stone floors, being a natural material dirt becomes ingrained in the pores and once trapped in there it becomes very difficult to shift. The answer is to seal the stone with a sealer which keeps the dirt on the surface where it can be easily cleaned away. However, sealers do wear down with use and eventually fail allowing dirt into the stone again.

Having explained this I quoted to deep clean the floor and then seal with an impregnating sealer that will add long lasting protection to the stone. I also offered to burnish the Limestone to add a polish however the decided to not to take me up on this option.

Deep Cleaning Limestone Floor Tile and Grout

To deep clean the floor, I applied a medium dilution of Tile Doctor Remove & Go and left it to soak in for ten minutes. This product as its name suggests is a coatings remover and although the sealer had worn off it was still present in some of the less used parts of the floor. In order to get a consistent finish, it’s important to remove all of the sealer from the entire floor.

Remove & Go is also a good tile and grout cleaner and after scrubbing the tile with a rotary machine fitted with a black scrubbing pad it did a good job of pulling the dirt out of the stone to the surface. The pads can struggle to reach into the recesses of the grout lines, so these were cleaned by hand using a stiff brush and more Remove & Go.

After cleaning the soiling was extracted using a machine that’s built into the van. This machine deploys water at high pressure onto the floor and then simultaneously extracts the soiling with a powerful vacuum into a waste tank leaving the floor fairly dry. It’s a great tool that helps to speed up the cleaning process.

Last step in the cleaning process was to run a 1500-grit burnishing pad across the floor to remove water marks. I use a 17-inch pad fitted to the rotary buffer running it over each tile several times. The pad is used with water for lubrication and then the floor is cleaned again using the van mounted machine.

Sealing Limestone Floor Tiles

The floor was left to dry off overnight and I returned the next day to apply the sealer for which we selected Tile Doctor Ultra-Seal. This is a natural look sealer that soaks into stone occupying the pores and thereby preventing dirt from residing there. This product was chosen as it offers invisible protection and won’t alter the natural look of the Limestone.

Once dry the Limestone floor was given a final buff using a red pad to remove excess sealer buff up the appearance of the stone which now looked so much cleaner and brighter than before. My client was very happy with the improvement and asked me to return and apply the same process to several bathrooms floors at the property which had the same tile.

Limestone Tiled Kitchen Floor After Cleaning Hauton

For aftercare cleaning I recommended they use Tile Doctor Neutral Tile Cleaner which is a mild yet effective floor tile cleaner that won’t impact the sealer which can be the issue with stronger products.

Professional Limestone Floor Tile Cleaning in Hauxton

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Pitted Limestone Floor Before After Renovation Warboys Cambridgeshire

Pitted Limestone Tiled Floor Deep Cleaned and Sealed in Warboys

1 Comment / Cambridge Tile Cleaning, Limestone Tile Cleaning and Polishing, Work History / Tom Conlon

The photographs below are from a Limestone tiled floor which had been installed throughout the kitchen, hall and downstairs WC of a property in the Cambridgeshire village of Warboys. The owner was fed up with the floor which was not cleaning up after multiple attempts, he surmised it was overdue a deep clean and re-seal and so got in touch with us to do the work.

We visited the property to survey the floor and could straight away that the owner was right to call us, the floor was definitely overdue a professional clean and he would not have been able to improve it without the right equipment. It was a large space and being the hallway and kitchen area, it was subject to a lot of foot traffic so was not looking its’ best. One of the biggest problems was the pitting in the Limestone which had trapped a lot of dirt which was difficult to shift. We discussed the options and the cost for the work which was agreeable to the client and arranged an appointment to return to carry out the renovation.

Deep Cleaning and restoring a Limestone Tiled Kitchen and Hallway Floor

Before starting I wrapped protective tape around the woodwork and removed the kickboards from underneath the kitchen units to protect them during the cleaning process.

Limestone and Travertine are notorious for pitting and on this floor the pits had trapped dirt making it look very unattractive. To deal with this I applied a strong dilution of Tile Doctor Remove and Go, allowed it to soak in and break-down the dirt and old coatings such as sealers for ten minutes and then scrubbed it in with a 400-grit diamond burnishing pad fitted to a rotary machine.

To remove the slurry that was generated I used our hot water pressurised extraction system which is a great tool that operates from a large compressor situated in my van which was parked outside. It fires hot pressurised water onto the floor via a floor spinner tool and then extracts the dirty water back onto a tank in the van. The pressure allows the water to penetrate deep into the pits of the stone to maximise the dirt extracted. This machine was an expensive investment however it saves a lot of time and allows me to achieve some outstanding results.

This process was repeated across the floor using the 800-grit and then the 1500-grit diamond burnishing pads using only water to lubricate and the extraction system to extract the slurry afterwards.

There were number of areas to cover so it took most of the day to clean all the floors, by the end of the day however the floor looked much cleaner and brighter. I left the floor to dry out overnight and came back the next day to apply a sealer.

Sealing a Limestone Tiled Kitchen and Hallway Floor

The next day I inspected the floor and checked it was dry before applying the sealer. To seal the Limestone I applied multiple coats of Tile Doctor Colour Grow which is an impregnating sealer which penetrates into the stone, protecting it from within and enhancing the natural colours in the stone in the process. Any excess sealant was buffed off the surface with a cloth after ten to fifteen minutes.

Limestone Tiled Floor After Cleaning Sealing

The sealer really brought out beauty and colours in the natural stone and the floor was transformed in just two days. The owner of the house was happy with the results and left the following feedback on the tile doctor feedback system.

‘Tom did a superb job of cleaning my tiles to look like new. Very professional, methodical and proud of his work’
Brian A, Warboys

Professional Renovation of Pitted Limestone Floor Tiles in Cambridgeshire

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Limestone Tiled Floor Cleaned and Polished in Cambridge

1 Comment / Cambridge Tile Cleaning, Grout Cleaning, Limestone Tile Cleaning and Polishing, Work History / Tom Conlon

These photographs are from a Limestone tiled floor installed at a residence in Cambridge. The tiles were in good condition but the shine on the Limestone had worn off leaving them looking dull and the owner wanted them re-polishing.

Polishing Limestone Tiles in Cambridge During Cleaning

Stripping and Polishing Limestone Floor Tiles

To restore the shine on polished stone we use a set of four diamond encrusted pads however before starting we gave the floor tiles a general clean with a dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean mainly to clean-up the grout but also to remove any loose surface grit. The cleaning solution was rinsed away and removed with a wet vacuum before starting the burnishing process using a rotary scrubbing machine fitted with a coarse diamond encrusted burnishing pad and a little water. The coarse pad strips off dirt and old sealers from the tile and the resulting slurry is then removed using a wet vacuum.

The next pad after coarse is a medium grit which you apply in the same way followed by the fine pad again with a little water until the floor is polished. The final step to bring up the polish on the Limestone is to apply the last “Very Fine” pad which is fitted to the rotary machine and run over the floor tiles until they are buffed to a nice shine.

Sealing Limestone Floor Tiles

Once the floor was dry we set about sealing it using two coats of Tile Doctor Colour Grow Sealer which is a penetrating sealer that soaks into the pores of the stone filling them so dirt can’t penetrate below the surface. As well as offering excellent protection Colour Grow lifts the colours in the stone enhancing it’s natural beauty. Once sealing was complete and dry the Limestone tiles were given a final buff with a soft white pad.

Polishing Limestone Tiles in Cambridge After Cleaning

Large Format Limestone Tiles Cleaned, Polished and Sealed in Cambridge

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