wiltshire – Tiling Tips – Tips and Information About Tiling

Repolishing Marble tiles in a Hallway

16th March 2017 Reese Mackie 0 Comments cleaning services, floor restoration, marble floor, marble tiles, sealing marble tiles, Tile Cleaning, tile polishing, tiled floor, Trowbridge, wiltshire

The owner of this polished Marble Tiled hallway at a house in Trowbridge was unhappy with the look of their floor which had become dull and scratched and wanted the floor re-polishing. Apologies in advance for the pictures below on reflection I should have taken some close-up shots so you could see the problem better. Cleaning Marble Tile and Grout The first step first was to give the floor a general clean focusing on the grout lines so I started by mixing a mild dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean which is an alkaline based product that is safe to use on Marble. The solution was brushed around the floor concentrating on getting the product into the grout lines. I left this to dwell for 5-10 minutes before scrubbing with stiff grout brush. Once the grout lines were cleaned the dirty solution was removed with a wet vacuum and the tiles rinsed thoroughly with clean water. Polishing Marble Tiles The next step was to burnish the floor using a coarse diamond encrusted pad fitted to a rotary machine. This is used with clean water to remove surface scratches and any sealer that may be present. Once the water has turned to slurry after 4 passes of each tile I would remove with a wet vacuum and rinsed thoroughly. One that step was completed the process is repeated using the Medium,

Repolishing Marble tiles in a Hallway in Marlborough

15th March 2017 Reese Mackie 0 Comments cleaning shower room, limescale removal, marble shower room, marble tiles, marlborough, sealing tile, Tile Cleaning, tile maintenance, wall tile cleaning, wiltshire

This was an unusual problem; a customer contacted us regarding their Marble shower room at a house in Marlborough where the customer had sprayed Viakal Limescale remover onto the Marble tiles to clean them which unfortunately etched the surface. I’ve downloaded the MSDS sheet from the Inernet for this product and can verify it contains a combination of Etidronic, Formic and Phosphoric acids so not a very safe product to use on Marble or any sealed stone surface. Cleaning Marble Wall Tiles To remove the etching the Marble tiles were burnished using a 6inch coarse diamond encrusted burnishing pad fixed to a hand held rotary machine and lubricated with a spray bottle of water to help keep tiles wet. Burnishing pads come in a set of four from Coarse, Medium, Fine and Super Fine so once we had removed the etching using the coarse pad we then applied the next pads in turn which re-polish the area back to its original shine. Between pads we rinsed the tiles down to remove any soiled water away; after the final super fine pad was applied the shower tiles were given a thorough rinse down ready for sealing. Sealing the Marble Wall Tiles The wall was wiped down and left to dry overnight and we returned the next day to seal the Marble tiles using two coats of Tile Doctor Colour Grow