Marble Tile Cleaning

The pictures below are of a large Marble mosaic tiled Sauna room at a property in Epping. I was asked for advice regarding the mosaic tiles on the floor which had whitened and lost all their character since it was installed approximately four years ago.

Having inspected the tiles and discussed their cleaning regime it became clear that strong cleaning products had been used to clean the floor tiles and this had stripped off the sealer prematurely. The sealer which was still present on the seating added colour and depth to the Marble and there was now a stark contrast between them.

To restore the appearance of the tiles I came up with a renovation plan that included deep cleaning and then burnishing to restore their honed appearance before re-sealing. Happy with the plan I worked out a quote which was accepted and a date set for the work to start.

Renovating Marble Mosaic Sauna Room Floor Tiles

Being a wet room and with little prep to do I was able to get to work straightaway cleaning the tiles using a 1:4 dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean. This is a strong alkaline tile and grout cleaning product that’s safe to use on stone. For best results the solution was left to soak into the Marble for about ten minutes before being scrubbed in. This gives it time to breakdown the dirt and other contaminates first.

Next, I started burnishing the mosaics with the Pro-Clean worked in with a 6-inch 400-grit burnishing pad fitted to a hand-held buffer. The area was relatively small so I felt 6-inch pads would allow for a more detailed approach and cope better with the shape of the floor, corners and grout. The pad is slowly run over the mosaics several times turning the cleaning solution black in the process. The soiling was then rinsed off and the extracted with a wet vacuum.

The burnishing was then repeated with the 800 and 1500-grit pads, this time using only water to lubricate the process. These finer burnishing pads start building the polish on the mosaics and restore the honed appearance of the Marble. After each pad the soiling is rinsed off with more water and extracted with the wet vacuum.

The wet vacuum was then used to get the floor as dry as possible and then left to dry off naturally for a few hours.

Sealing Sauna Room Marble Mosaic Floor Tiles

Once dry the Marble mosaics were buffed with an even finer 3000-grit pad to achieve a semi shine before sealing, this is the last pad in the burnishing process and is applied to the tiles dry with only a little water sprayed onto the tile. This is a technique we call “Spray Burnish” and has the advantage of leaving the tiles dry.

The final step of the renovation was to seal the floor with two coats of Tile Doctor Colour Grow which is a hard-wearing impregnator that works by soaking into the pores of the stone thereby preventing dirt from residing there. The sealer will ensure dirt and water remains on the surface where it can be easily removed.

Colour grow as its name suggests contains a colour enhancer which I felt would best match the sealer that was used on the seating. The choice worked well and once complete you really couldn’t tell the difference.

Before leaving I took time to discuss aftercare cleaning which was so important to ensure the mosaic tiles didn’t degrade like they had done previously. For this floor I recommended they use Stone Soap which is a gentle but effective floor cleaner that contains an enhancer designed to maintain the patina on polished stone.

 

Professional Renovation of a Marble Mosaic Tiled Sauna in South Essex