Polished marble floors can be a thing of real beauty, no wonder that so many people desire them. But they can also be a little tricky to look after. The basic rules to maintaining a polished marble floor are the same as for any stone really: Keep it free of grit, pick up isolated spills as they occur, use a mild/neutral cleaner in place of high alkaline detergents for regular cleaning and on no account expose it to any kind of acid.
Years ago, when I used to work in a tile shop, one of the most often-heard rejections to ceramic floors was “they are slippery aren’t they?” (the other being “they are cold aren’t they?). The problem for the tile industry back then was that the only other type of flooring that people could compare was carpet or some kind of vinyl flooring.
The latest how-to movie from my friend A’nge of www.aquamix.com.au in Australia shows how we use Knock Down by Aqua Mix, to hone a marble floor. When you see the end result you may be forgiven for initially thinking it looks dull, compared to the way it was at the start, so why do we do this? – There are a number of reasons; first of all, if a polished floor is badly worn and scratched then the only way to repair it is to re grind and or re polish depending on how bad it has become. However sometimes we may not want the polished finish anyway as it can be harder to maintain. Or, the stone could have been supplied in a honed state in the first place and it needs to be re-honed.
Also some stones such as travertine, do not always polish well, or consistently, they can suffer from hard and soft areas resulting in dull (or chalky) and shiny spots. In such cases it can be much more pleasing to the eye to have a nice, flat, smooth and even finish – hence honing.
You will see that scratches and marks are easily removed leaving the floor with a flat, clean and smooth but non-reflective finish. Once the floor is dry, it should then be sealed (as the honing process removes sealer too). If the loss of colour is an issue, then no problem, make use of an enhancing sealer such as Enrich n Seal to bring back the full colour, but with out the polished surface.
I recently recieved a question from Chris Rayner, as it is such a common issue I thought I would share it with everyone. Thanks for the question Chris, hope this helps to answer it for you:
Hi, I have a big problem. My tiler has just started to grout the lovely porcelain tiles in my new kitchen using dark grout on the pale tiles. But the grout has stained the tiles! On close inspection the box of the tiles says they should be sealed and the company accepts no responsibility. Can I get the dark grout out of the tiles? We have already tried HG Cement Grout film remover. Thanks, Chris…
Hopefully, this will help, but a lot depends on the tile and grout:
