Marble Tile Cleaning

Welcome to my Work History archive where you will find detailed examples of the cleaning and renovation of Marble tiles carried out in Lincolnshire

Cleaning and Polishing Marble tiles

Marble is reputed in the international market for its premium quality, toughness and durability. It is often the preferred choice for interior and exterior in both commercial and domestic situations for flooring, wall cladding, paving, facades of buildings, pavements and landscaping.

One of the main issues with polished Marble is the polish starts to wear down with use and eventually becomes dull. Another issue we see is acid etching where strong unsuitable cleaning products used on the stone etch the surface and ruin its appearance. To resolve both these problems the stone needs to be re-polished with diamond encrusted burnishing pads of different grits to hone the stone and bring back that deep shine. If this sounds familiar you should talk to us about our annual maintenance program where we visit you once a year to clean, polish and seal your floor thus keeping it in top condition.

Below you will find detailed examples of work we have carried out in the past, it should give you some idea of what’s involved and what can be achieved with the right techniques and products.


Mosaic Tiled Floor Before and After Restoration Lincoln College

1880 Mosaic Tiled Floor Fully Restored at Lincoln College

Pictured below are photographs I took recently whilst restoring an original 1880s Mosaic tiled floor at Lincoln College. The floor was 60m2 in size and located in the main entrance of the college. After searching around for someone who could restore the floor back to its original state, they found Tile Doctor and as their local representative I was asked to survey the floor and provide a quote.

Mosaic Tiled Floor Lincoln College Before Restoration

The work would involve removing concrete screed, repairing cracks, filling holes, deep cleaning and then sealing the floor to protect it. Time was a factor as I would only have the space to myself between the end of the summer term and before the freshers arrived at the end of September. Happy to get involved I was pleased to be awarded the work.

Repairing and Deep Cleaning a Mosaic Tiled Floor

Rather than restore the floor a decision had been taken in the past to level it and cover it, probably in some sort of carpet. As a result, my first action was to carefully remove the concrete screed, glue, and bitumen. This was pain staking work as I didn’t want to damage the mosaic tiles hidden underneath. To do this I needed to use a chisel and a set of diamond encrusted burnishing pads fitted to a heavy floor buffer and lubricated with water. Each pad generates a fair amount of slurry which needs to be rinsed off with more water and extracted using an industrial wet vacuum.

Mosaic Tiled Floor Lincoln College During Restoration

With the screed and other coverings removed to reveal the whole Mosaic floor I was then able to move onto deep cleaning up the tiles using a strong dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean which is a tile and grout cleaning product scrubbed in with a black pad. Again, the wet vacuum and more water was employed to remove the dirt and soil generated during the cleaning process.

The appearance of the Mosaic tiled floor had now fully to revealed itself and I was able to move onto the next stage which was to fill in the cracks and holes using a filler coloured to match the tile and grout. I also painted matching colours onto the surface of the cracks and holes to camouflage them and ensure the repairs would match the general pattern of the floor and make the repairs invisible.

Mosaic Tiled Floor Lincoln College During Restoration

Due to the large size of the floor and with other contractors working in the building I worked in cordoned off sections and used an industrial turbo dryer speed up the during times.

Sealing a Large Mosaic Tiled Floor

The main restoration took two days to complete, and I returned for a third and final day to finish the floor with the application of a protective sealer. For this I chose Tile Doctor Colour Grow which is an impregnating sealer that protects by soaking into the pores of the tiles and protecting it from within. This sealer also enhances the natural colours of the tiles making them stand-out better, three coats were applied.

Mosaic Tiled Floor Lincoln College After Restoration

The building managers were over the moon with the transformation and draw quite a crowd from the staff as they came to see the 140-year-old floor renovated to its original condition. Not only did we manage to save this historic part of the building but also save them thousands on a replacement.

Mosaic Tiled Floor Lincoln College After Restoration

 

Historic Mosaic Tiled Floor Restored in Lincoln

1880 Mosaic Tiled Floor Fully Restored at Lincoln College Read More »

Sealing Marble Tiles Woodhall Before and After

Removing Scratches from Marble floor tiles in Woodhall SPA

This Marble Tiled floor was installed in the conservatory of a house in Woodhall Spa who had asked if we could remove the scratches from their inherited marble tiles around the door area and where furniture had been dragged across the tile as shown in the photos. Interestingly our customer is a chief engineer on cruise ships all over the world and knew what this floor could look like if restored professionally.

Damaged Marble Tile Woodhall Scratched Marble Tile Woodhall

Burnishing Mable Tiles

Other than the scratches the majority of the floor had been well maintained so the solution was to burnishing the marble back to its original condition using a set of diamond encrusted pads fitted to a slow speed machine and lubricated with a little water. The burnishing pads come in a set of four and applied to the floor with a little water one by one using a rotary machine running at slow speed.

Cleaning Marble Tiles Woodhall
The process starts with the coarse pad which strips back the top layer and removes sealers and dirt from the surface of the stone. The pads then become finer and finer with the last pad being a final polish that takes the tile back to near it’s originally intended shine. You can see from the photographs that we actually managed to resurface the marble, remove the scratches and we also filled in some small holes and then allowed the floor to dry overnight helped by our turbo drying system allowing for minimal drying times.

Polishing Marble Tiles Woodhall

Marble Tile Sealing

The next day we applied two coats of Tile Doctor Colour Grow sealer to the tiles, the sealer fills the pores of the stone protecting it from stains and this particular sealer also lifts the natural colours in the stone.

Sealing Marble Tiles Woodhall
As you can see the scratches were removed and the tiles now shine and are protected and polished to a stunning finish that the customer was over the moon with and couldn’t thank us enough for the professional and excellent job on time and budget.

Marble Tiled Floor resurfaced and polished in Woodhall Spa

Removing Scratches from Marble floor tiles in Woodhall SPA Read More »

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Lincolnshire Tile Doctor

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