Marble Floors

Marble is a lovely Natural Stone, but firstly to understand how to restore Marble, you must understand what Marble is.

What Is Marble?

The word Marble derives from the Ancient Greek (mármaros) meaning flash, gleaming or shining stone. Very apt giving the sheen that Marble can create, it can also be honed to give a natural matt finish, another service we can provide.

Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, usually calcite or dolomite. Geologists use the term marble to refer to metamorphosed limestone and can be very difficult to differentiate between.

Have you ever wondered what the lines (Veins) or swirls are in Marble floors? They are due to various mineral impurities such as clay, silt, sand and iron oxides. They add to the character and natural appearance of the stone, ask us about our colour enhancing sealers to see these features really pop out.

Marble is a hard stone measuring 3-5 on the Mohs scale. The Mohs scale is a system of measuring how hard a material is, 1 being Talcum powder, and 10 being Diamond. Hence why we must use diamonds to polish Marble!

We can help. From cleaning, diamond polishing and sealing we do it all….and with passion!

Our Services

Cleaning Process

Due to our extensive training, experience and knowledge, we not only know how to get the best results, but how to get them safely. For instance, Marble is an acid sensitive stone, so grabbing some acidic grout cleaner to clean that grubby grout is not a good idea!

At the quotation stage, we discuss any specific measures that need to be taken, for example moving items of furniture to what needs to be protected. We cover kitchen units, paintwork and any joining rooms and flooring. We treat your home as if it were our own.

The first cleaning step is to pre-treat your floor with our specialist cleaners, these are determined by the type and degree of soilage, not to mention the type of stone! Once these have had the required dwell time, we agitate the solutions into the floor, using a combination of our rotary, contra rotating brush machine and our specialist tile master machine. This step gets the solutions deep into those problematic grout joints, also removing all surface dirt, grease and marks.

The next step is to rinse the solutions off your floor, taking all the dirt with it. This is where we flex our muscles, using our powerful van mounted extraction machine, we can rinse your floor at up to 1000psi of pressure without making as much as a splash. Often 1000psi isn’t required, we don’t rely on high pressures to clean your floor, it does however ensure all solution and dirt residue are fully removed and neutralised before the next process.

These two process are often repeated 2-3 times, this is to use different agitation machines to combat different areas of your floor, along with using different solutions, again to deal with any other problematic areas, for example grease next to the cooker, or engrained dirt where your wellies sit to dry!

Why not ask us about our maintenance plans to keep your floor looking good all year round

Polishing and Honing Process

On some floors a clean may be all that’s required, but if your floor is looking dull, scratched, or looks etched, or even if you just want a higher sheen, or even a matt finish, this is next process to achieve your desired finish.

All Marbles are different, some will take a very high sheen where even a filament in a light bulb can be seen in the reflection, others such as tumbled marble, often can never be bought to this level of sheen. This is one of the many reasons why we always trial floors first to determine what’s possible.

We always carry out a free no obligation trial to not only show you what we can do, but also to discuss your specific requirements, and to give you all the options that are achievable with your floor.

As mentioned in the Mohs scale, to give a natural polish to a stone like Marble, you need to use something harder, this is where the diamonds come in. We use diamond encrusted pads on a weighted rotary machine to achieve a polish. Similar to using sandpaper on wood, we have to work through various grit pads to get the desired results. Using this, and a combination of polishing powders, we are able to get the desired results. We don’t use waxes or floor finishes to achieve a sheen, this won’t last as they are designed to be a sacrificial layer that will peel and wear, it’s a quick fix, not a long-term solution.

If a honed finish is more to your liking, we can offer this too. In a similar way to polishing we use different grit pads to leave a smooth matt looking finish ready to be sealed.

Sealing

It’s very important to seal your floor. Unsealed is unprotected, Marble is a porous stone that will allow liquid spills and even dirty mop water to penetrate and potentially stain and etch your floor.

We use the best premium impregnating seals on the market. Being an impregnating sealer, they don’t sit on the top of your floor, but sit just below the surface to give a natural look to the floor. Using an active compound resin that becomes part of the stone, your tiles and grout are protected from dirt, grime and daily food spills with an invisible and breathable barrier.

We also offer a colour enhancing version which will slightly darken the stone, but accentuate the different colours and veins in your floor. Again, we always discuss the various options, and demonstrate the effects of all seals before application.

Benefits of sealing your floor:

• Gives excellent protection against both oil and water based stains
• Laboratory certified as Safe for food preparation areas and worktops
• Protects and seals both indoor and outdoor surfaces
• Easy to apply and Ready to USE
• Does not change the appearance of most surface types
• Aids maintenance and makes it easy to clean your floor

Don’t forget to ask us about our maintenance care plans to keep your floor looking great all year round!

So, if you have a Marble floor in Worcestershire, Gloucestershire or Warwickshire, that’s in need of a clean and polish, why not give us a call and arrange your free trial, turn your eyesore into a feature that you will love once again.