The young gentleman who owned this property in Cardiff was distressed about his new Verde Limestone kitchen floor. He explained to me that he recently had a party at the house and one of his friends drunk too much and vomited over the stone floor. Easy enough to clean up you would think, however in a rush to clean up the mess he slipped banged his head on the corner of the worktop and ending up bleeding onto the sick.
Thankfully his friend was ok. but unfortunately, the acid from the stomach, had caused the surface of the Limestone to be etched quite considerably and now appeared to show permanent wipe marks across some of the floor. Thankfully I advised that we could repolish the surface of the stone to rectify the problem, and this would soon have his floor looking good as new again. The 12mm Verde Limestone tiles have a lovely green shade and set the newly fitted kitchen off a treat. We agreed a price for the work, and I booked the job in soon after.
Cleaning a Limestone Tiled Kitchen Floor
To restore the appearance of the floor it needed to be burnished with a set of Tile Doctor Diamond encrusted pads which resurface the tile and rebuild the polish. I started with an abrasive 400-grit pad fitted to a weighted rotary machine worked into the Limestone using only water to lubricate the process. The floor is then rinsed with water to remove the soil which is then extracted with a wet vacuum. This process is repeated using an 800 , 1500 and finally a 3000-grit until the surface of the floor was restored with a high polish.
The grout was then cleaned with Tile Doctor Pro-Clean which is a versatile cleaning solution ideal for grout cleaning. It’s diluted with water and then left to soak into the grout line for a short while before being scrubbed in. After scrubbing the waste is rinsed off with water and extracted with the wet vacuum.
The floor was left to dry overnight with assistance from a floor flan so it would be nice and dry for sealing the following day. By the end of the first day the stain was gone, and the Limestone looked so much better, much to the relief of my client.
Sealing a Limestone Tiled Kitchen Floor
The next morning, I took a few moisture readings from the tile to make sure it was dry and ready for sealing. The readings were fine, so I set about applying Tile Doctor Stone Oil to the stone. This product soaks into the pores of the stone restoring the natural oils to the stone and enhance the strong dark green colour of the Verde Limestone.
The Limestone needed to be dry before continuing with the last stage of sealing so stone oil was left to dry off overnight and I came back the next day to finish off. People may get the impression from reading this that I am a little over cautious, but I’ve learned from experience that applying a sealer to a damp floor is not a good idea.
So the next day I returned to seal the tiles and for this floor I used three coats of Tile Doctor Colour Grow which is impregnating sealer that protects from within whilst enhancing the natural colours in the stone. The combination of the Stone Oil and Colour Grow add long lasting protection to the stone whilst improving its appearance.
The gentleman in question was over the moon with the result as he left the following glowing feedback for me; I understand he is not planning any more parties any time soon!
