Tumbeled Creme Marfil

Hi all, it has been a while as i have been busy this summer and neglected the blog. Well with the children heading back to school people have been taking a look at there floors and looking to have work carried out on them. The most recent one of these was a tumbled creme marfil floor in a kitchen & hall that had been installed over 3 years ago. The customer had been unhappy with the finish after installation and the tiler used a wax coating to put a nice high gloss shine on the floor and hence cover any marks that had once been noticeable. Well after 3 years of walking washing etc the floor had gone dull, dark & generaly lacked its once fine marble look to it. Note in the picture the dark & light patches were the wax is showing signs of coming away from the tiles.
Well after a few tests to determine what was the best approach to restoring this floor i decided that the best way removing the wax was Aqua Mix "Sealer & Coating Remover". This product is excellent at breaking down coatings from above & within the tile bring evrything to the surface which allows for its complete removal. There is a dwell time of around 1 hour to allow the product to do its job. The only drawback is its not a very pleasant smell and you have to be carefull as it makes the floor extremley slippy to work on. Once it is removed and the floor given a good rinse over i was ready for the next stage which was to give the floor back its natural shine rather than using a wax i used Aqua Mix "Reviver" which put a lovely natural shine back on the floor. The last stage was to apply a sealer to the floor and here i used Aqua Mix "Ultra-Solv" which is a penetrating sealer that provides an excellent level of protection without any loss of shine to the surface.

Travertine

Well its been around for thousands of years as flooring, paving, vanity tops the list is endless so why is it that i get call after call from homeowners complaining about there newly installed travertine floor. If its not holes appearing its the lack colour and character in the floor.

Most people spend a lot of time choosing colours, locating sockets etc but when it come stone flooring they go by the best price available, now im not trying to say that the most expensive is best but with travertine the more you learn about the make up the more time you will spend looking for a good quality at a good price.

Travertine is a limestone which in its structure is very similar to an Aero chocolate bar, what you want is as few big holes within your stone and the only way to do this is look carefully at what your buying, its is almost certain that once purchased there will be some tiles that will have holes in them. Its here that you need to be wise in purchasing, check that the type of filler used in filling any holes in the tiles is not pure cement as over time this cement will shrink and fall into your tiles leaving you with a nice big hole to fill. The best test is to wet the tile and look for traces of pink which is the cement changing colour. Ask your stone salesperson what type of filler is used in your stone (if he says none walk away), what your looking for is some form of resin fill.

Note: that most new floors develope holes, these can be treated by filling the holes with a good resin fill when they occur. It is not an indication of bad tiles that holes occur but may be that the floor is being overheated or over cleaned with the wrong type of cleaner!

Ok so we have our stone picked and its on to the installer, its here that i get my next problem. You go and get various estimates from tilers and you go with the guy giving the lowest price or who is recommened to you as he has just laid your friends ceramic floor and it looks great. Stone needs to intalled by a stone pro, ask for references of previous stone work. Call these people and check your guy is what he says. Be prepared to pay upwards of €35m2 to €50m2 for a good hassle free installer.

A poor installer can leave you with tiles that have lips between each tile or just a very eneven floor all over. Your pro will look for overfilled tiles and select these for cuts. A poor installer will leave you with a grout haze thats hard to shift which makes your newly installed floor look shaby from day 1. Make sure that your installer covers cleaning the tiles fully before he move onto the last stage sealing. Again if your guy doesnt recommend sealing think twice, all natural stone will require sealing after instalation.

Last part is to choose a sealer which matches your tile, i recommend a water based one such as Aqua Mix Sealers Choice Gold as it works well on wet (which your new tile will be during instalation) tiles. Solvent based sealers will also work but not all the sealer may make it into the tiles as the water in the tile will resist the solvent in the sealer. Make sure that all excess sealer is removed from tiles as this causes the tile to cloud over and is difficult to remove once dry.

Ok i hope i havent put you off travertine but once you spend time choosing the tiles, the installer and the sealing you will now have a floor to be proud of.

Feel free to contact me with questions before or after buying a new stone floor and the tips above work for most natural stones.

Frank

WEBSITE IS LIVE

Well it took a liitle longer than expected but the website is live and online www.fha.ie . Comments and suggestions for any updates or changes can be sent to info@fha.ie. But for now just enjoy. Remember the full Aqua Mix range can be viewed at www.aquamix.com and all the technical stuff is there for downloading.

I am overdue a post so i will put one on Travertine up this week.

Thanks

Frank

New Website on the way

Soon to launch is my new website www.fha.ie with all the products, pictures of jobs, topical artictiles on stone and more. Will let you know when it's up and running.

Stone Finishes

Thought i would discuss the most popular stone finishes i come across whilst on jobs, i am always asked the difference between them so here they are

(1) Polished A gloosy, highly reflective surface
> Surface is very smooth
> Colours & veins appear more vibrant
> Shine comes from the natural reflection of the stones crystals
Note: Polish can wear away due to heavy traffic & improper maintenance, so think carefully before choosing & ask yourself whats likely to happen on my new floor after installation. Looks great in large sizes in large light filled rooms.

(2) Tumbled Slightly rough in texture
> Rough texture to surface
> Often has lovely exposed veins especially in marbles
> appears as a slightly old or worn look to floor
Note: carefull how you clean this stone as dirt can become trapped in its textured finish, i think it looks fantastic in kitchens & high traffic areas as it's worn/old look is never supposed to be perfect.

(3) Honed Flat matt low sheen finish
> Surface is smooth & flat
> More porous than polished finish
> Better suited to low traffic area's
> Colours are not as bright & vibrant as a polished stone
Note: often get a call out to a floor that client calls polished only to find that it is Honed, in marbles sometimes a honed finish can have a very slight sheen that clients think to be polished.

Other surfaces that i come across other than the main 3 above
are
Sand Blasted
Flamed
Bush Hammered

comments to info@fha.ie

Wrong Products for Marble Floors

Just in from working on a black n white marble floor, client called me in as the floor had lost its shine after having some work carried out recently. First impressions where that the floor had been severly etched as there was a slight shine visible in the tiles, started my usual clean down of the tiles and low & behold a wax starts coming away from the tiles. It seems some bright spark had sold them a marble shine from a bottle product to put onto a polished marble floor. Years of applying this product & washing the floor had allowed for a build up of wax & dirt which once cleaned off show me a lovely Carrara Marble & Negro Marquina floor below. I fully strip back the floor using Aqua Mix Heavy Duty Tile & Grout Cleaner with a little Aqua Mix Nano Scrub to help with the wax removal. Once cleaned & dry i applied Aqua Mix Enrich n Seal to bring back the lovely black & white floor.

So the moral of this story is if the bottle says just pour it out and watch your new shine chances are its what i call Marble Shine Away!!!

Before & After