Category: Sealing (Page 2 of 4)

Most weeks I receive calls from people asking how to remove a sealer residue. Sealer residues occur when an impregnating sealer is incorrectly applied. Impregnating sealers (or penetrating sealers as they are sometimes known) are intended to be in or below the surface of the stone rather than ‘on’ it. So, the correct application involves applying the sealer to the surface, allowing a short time for penetration (this might be around 5 minutes, depending on both the sealer being used and the material being sealed) then any surplus sealer, remaining on the surface should be removed with something absorbent, ideally a white paper or cotton towel.All too often though, for various reasons this Continue reading

Copyright Ian Taylor and The Tile and Stone Blog.co.uk, 2013. See copyright notice above.

For the second part of my ‘six-sided sealing’ theme we will look at issues relating to the back of the stone. Take a look at the picture, what do you see? Well, it is a granite facade; quite a porous one in fact, the light grey areas are correct and indeed have the desired appearance. However there are a couple of noticeable issues.Perhaps the most obvious issue is that dark staining. This has come from behind the stone; as you can see, the stone adorns more than just a simple external façade, it is also a planter the staining is mainly due to the presence of water in the soil of the planter, and as such if the water dries out the intensity of the stain will likely reduce. However, water is very rarely Continue reading

Copyright Ian Taylor and The Tile and Stone Blog.co.uk, 2013. See copyright notice above.

When most people think about sealing stone tiles, they are, for the most part thinking about sealing the top surface and nothing else. But as we shall see there are times when it is actually beneficial to seal all 6 sides of the stone; that is the front, the back and the 4 vertical sides.The main reason for applying a sealer to a stone tile is to add a degree of stain resistance to the finished (or visible) surface of that stone. However there are occasions where sealing the back and also the sides can help prevent other issues. Consider a polished stone like Continue reading

Copyright Ian Taylor and The Tile and Stone Blog.co.uk, 2013. See copyright notice above.

Here’s a question we received just the other day:

“Hi, I have shiny black porcelain tiles in the kitchen which we have put a tile sealer on. We have the same porcelain tiles in our toilet with no sealer on. When I clean the toilet tiles they shine after just a mop however when I mop the sealer covered ones in the kitchen, unless I mop, then scrub, then buff then they look smeary. How can I remove the sealer from the porcelain tiles in the toilet? Any ideas are welcome please?”

And our suggested answer:

“Your situation sounds fairly straight-forward. Perhaps, your porcelain did not need a sealer, not all do, or perhaps too much was applied – in any event, you have got sealer residue left on the surface (this is not where it is meant to be, it is supposed to be just inside any pores in the tile and the surplus should have been removed from the surface before it dried). So, now you have a very thin coating of a polymer of some kind adhered to the face of the tiles. This residue, will attract dirt and will not be as easy to clean as the bare tile.

So, you need to remove it, depending on how long it has had to cure, and how much there is etc, you may be able to remove simply with MicroscrubTM, a little water, and a white nylon pad – take a look at our recent post on how to use MicroscrubTM.

If the sealer is now quite old and MicroscrubTM on it’s own is not quite enough, then you may need to soften it up with a proprietary solvent stripper. The way to use this is to apply it neat to the floor, leave it for about 30 minutes then scrub and rinse well. You could add some MicroscrubTM just at the point you are about to start scrubbing if you like as this would boost the cleaning power of the stripper.

Hope this helps”

Copyright Ian Taylor and The Tile and Stone Blog.co.uk, 2013. See copyright notice above.