restoration

Terracotta Horncastle Before and After Sealing

Terracotta Kitchen Floor Cleaned and Sealed in Horncastle

This Terracotta tiled floor was laid in the kitchen of a property located in Horncastle, Lincolnshire. The tiles were well maintained and in reasonable condition compared to some floors I have worked on but they had started to look tired and dull in some areas and so the customer wanted them deep cleaned and resealed.

Terracotta Horncastle Before Cleaning

Cleaning Terracotta Tiles

I began the job using a strong solution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean, which is a heavy duty alkaline product ideal for cleaning natural products such as Terracotta and stripping off old sealers, this was scrubbed in with a black pad fitted to a rotary machine. We repeated the process a couple of times and also used a stiff hand brushes along the grout lines where the pads can often struggle to reach. Once happy the floor was clean it was given a thorough rinse to remove any remaining chemical and left it to dry.

Terracotta Horncastle Before Sealing

Sealing Terracotta Tile

We left the floor to dry and then returned then next day to re-seal it. Tile Doctor Seal and Go was used to seal the floor, it’s a topical water based sealer that doesn’t give off an odour when it’s drying and also offers durable stain protection together with a low sheen finish which I think you will agree has added a nice shine to the floor. Terracotta is very porous and this floor actually took five coats of sealer before it was fully sealed. Applying a sealer does take a long time to apply as you have to wait for it to dry before applying the next coat.

Terracotta Horncastle After Sealing
The work took two days in all, you can see the difference for yourself.

Kitchen Terracotta Floor Cleaned and Sealed in Lincolnshire

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Travertine Floor Before and After

Travertine floor tiles in a Conservatory, Louth

These photographs are of a the Travertine tiled floor installed in a conservatory at a house in the historic town of Louth in Lincolnshire. The travertine was starting to dull and the grout was in need of a good clean so we were asked to maintain it.

Travertine Floor Before

Cleaning Travertine Tiles

Hard stone tiles such as Travertine and Marble etc. need to be polished with a set of Burnishing pads however before you start that process it’s necessary to remove any surface dirt from the floor first, this will ensure any grit that could get trapped in the burnishing pads and scratch the floor is removed first. With this in mind we washed the floor using a mild dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean, this was also a good opportunity to get a stiff brush into the grout lines and give them a good scrub. 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

Polishing and Sealing Travertine Floor Tiles

The floor was then re-polished 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.

Travertine Floor After
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 will provide on-going durable surface protection as well as enhancing the natural colours in the Travertine tile.

Travertine Floor After with Water Test
The last photograph shows the effectiveness of the sealer on the surface of the tile, without a sealer the water would have soaked into the travertine, with a sealer it bubbles on the surface allowing spillages to be removed easily before they have chance to stain the stone.

Cleaning, Polishing and Sealing Travertine in Lincolnshire

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