Limestone is a beautiful flooring material however it’s a porous sedimentary rock which is not as tough as its cousins, Marble and Travertine, and therefore will need more Maintenance over time. This Limestone tiled kitchen floor in Lyndhurst is a great example of how this material can lose its appearance without a regular maintenance regime in place.
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Cleaning Limestone Kitchen Tiles
To restore the appearance of polished Limestone we use a set of diamond encrusted Burnishing Pads which effectively cut back the layer of dirt on the floor and then build back up the polish. It was a reasonably large kitchen with an island worktop to so we worked in sections removing the kick boards as we went.
You can see the effectiveness of the process from the test patch below.
We stated the burnishing process with the coarse pad fitted to a rotary machine and applied with a little water. The coarse pad is very good at removing dirt and old sealers from stone and once completed the resultant surface water and loose dirt is removed using a wet vacuum.
At this point the grout was also cleaned by applying a strong solution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean which was scrubbed in along the grout lines, this is necessary as the recessed nature of the grout makes it difficult for the pads to reach it.
I mentioned earlier there are four pads in the burnishing system, so once the floor was rinsed with water following the grout cleaning the other three pads were applied to the stone floor in sequence finishing on the finer polishing pads one after the other until we were left with a high shine finish.
Sealing Limestone Tiled Floor
We left the floor to dry and came back later to seal the floor, the floor must be dry before sealing otherwise it can effect the performance of the sealer. Once we were happy the floor was dry we proceeded to seal the Limestone tile using two coats of Tile Doctor Colour Grow which is a colour enhancing product that impregnates the pores of the stone bringing out the natural colours and protecting it from within.
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For the regular cleaning of polished stone floors we recommend using a specialist cleaning product such as Tile Doctor Stone Soap. If you wish to use something else the read the label in detail first, most supermarket tile cleaners are only suitable for glazed tiles as they are acidic and this will erode and reduce the life of the sealer over time.