tile restoration

Marble Cloakroom WC Floor

Marble Wall and Floor Tile Refresh in Woking

This job was to refresh the Marble tile installed in a house in Woking. There were a number of different marble tiles installed on the wall and floor including two shower cubicles, a bathroom floor, a small cloakroom floor and the kitchen floor; the pictures below show before and after photographs for each job.

Cleaning a Marble Tile Shower Cubicle

I started with the shower cubicles using Tile Doctor Oxy-Pro which is a specific product for cleaning showers and comes with a spray attachment that mixes the cleaning agent with air making it lighter and helping it stick to vertical surfaces. This was left to dwell on the surface for a while and then the tiles were scrubbed before being rinsed down. This action not only cleaned the dirt and soap scum off the tile it also got rid of some mould that had started to grow.

Marble Shower Cublicle Marble Shower Cubicle

In one shower there was a build-up of limescale on the wall so to get rid of this I used a little Tile Doctor Grout Clean-up, this product is usually for removing grout smears from tile however it’s also good at removing most types of mineral deposits such as Limescale, you do have to be quick though as it’s an Acid based product I had to be quick and to thoroughly rinse because I didn’t want to damage the marble.

Marble Mosaic Bathroom floor tile cleaning

The next job was to tackle the bathroom floor which was tiled with small Marble mosaic tiles. A long time was spent cleaning and scrubbing the grout of this floor using a solution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean mixed 50/50 with NanoTech Ultra-Clean to add tiny abrasive particles making a very effective tile cleaner. Again once the cleaning was finished cleaning the floor was rinsed thoroughly with clean water to remove any cleaning product.

Marble floor Tiles Before Cleaning Marble floor Tiles After Cleaning

Marble Kitchen floor tile cleaning

The next floor on the list was the kitchen floor, again all Marble tile; on this I used a rotary scrubbing machine fitted with a medium brush head and again a mixture of Pro-Clean and NanoTech UltraClean. The reason I used a brush head instead of a scrubbing pad is because it is a textured marble the brushes will get into the nooks and crannies, the grout was especially stained in this area and this is now much improved.

Marble Kitchen Floor Tile Before Marble Kitchen Floor Tile After

Marble Cloakroom floor cleaning

The last floor on the list to do was the cloakroom WC which was cleaned using the same method as on the bathroom floor described above using the Pro-Clean, NanoTech, and UltraClean mixture worked in with some elbow grease.

Marble Cloakroom- WC Floor
Once everything had been cleaned, and rinsed. I left it all to dry out overnight.

Sealing Marble Tiles

The following day before I sealed I checked everything just in case I had missed anything, but it was all okay. I sealed everything twice using Tile Doctor Colour Grow and checked that the tiles were properly sealed by doing a water test. When sealing you have to make sure that you don’t let the seal puddle so I buff the tiles with terry towelling and on the large areas I also buff the floors with a white buffing pad.

As you can imagine this was a very large job and when everything was eventually finished the lady said she was really happy and couldn’t believe how the tiles had come out, she even had her neighbours round to see how it all turned out and they were all suitably impressed.

Multiple Marble Tile Wall and Floor Tiles cleaned in Woking, Surrey

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Dirty Travertine Sealed

Kitchen Travertine Tiled floor cleaning in Mortlake

We recently cleaned and sealed a small Travertine floor in a kitchen for a customer in Mortlake near Richmond upon Thames in Surrey. To be fair the floor wasn’t that bad, it was just a bit dirty because the customer had been told to use a steamer to clean the floor which was bad advice as the heat from the steam was breaking down the sealer and resulting in the tiles getting dirty.

Dirty Travertine Before Dirty Travertine Before

Cleaning Travertine Kitchen Tile

I first applied a 50/50 mix of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean and Nanotech Ultra Clean leaving it to dwell on the tile for 15 minutes before scrubbing it in with a rotary Machine fitted with a brush head. Once I was satisfied the floor was clean it was thoroughly rinsed with clean water. The dirty solution removed using a wet vacuum and then left it to dry overnight.

Dirty Travertine Cleaned not Sealed Dirty Travertine Cleaned not Sealed

Sealing Travertine Tile

The next day the floor had dried and we proceeded to seal it using two coats of Tile Doctor Colour Grow which as well as providing a good level of stain protection also brings out the natural colours in the stone. I always use a water test to determine if the right about of sealer has been applied, very simply you drop a small amount of water onto the stone and if it forms a bubble on the surface it’s sealed.

Dirty Travertine Sealed Dirty Travertine Sealed

Before I left I provided the customer with a proper maintenance plan for the floor, and expect a call in around a years’ time to come and do a deep clean and seal. The customer was delighted with the results and said the floor looked better than when they had it laid.

Resolving Travertine steam cleaning problems in Surrey

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Terracotta Restoration Before and After

Terracotta Tiled Floor Sealing

Although officially the East Surrey Tile Doctor we often get requests further afield through customer recommendations, this particular Terracotta Tiled floor was in Brixton, South London. You can see from the photographs below that the floor was not looking its best and had been splashed with paint.

Terracotta Tile Cleaning

To get the tiles clean we applied a strong dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean mixed 50/50 with NanoTech Ultra Clean which combines well to produce a heavy duty alkaline cleaner/coatings stripper with a cleaner containing tiny nano sized abrasive particles that work deep into the floor. This combination is ideal for dealing difficult floors, its best to let it dwell on the floor for 10 to 20 minutes before working it into the tiles with a rotary machine fitted with a black scrubbing pad.

Terracotta Restoration Before Photo
Once that was done the soiled solution was removed from the floor using a wet vacuum and we were then able to see a few spots where old wax remained on the floor. To deal with the wax Tile Doctor Remove and Go, which is a powerful coatings remover, was applied to the floor and left to dwell for a while before rinsing thoroughly with clean water and then treated with a steam cleaning machine to ensure the floor had been neutralised of all chemicals. It’s important not to leave a trace of chemical on the floor as they could react with the sealer.

The floor was still quite wet at this stage with small puddles of water forming in the dips of the uneven floor; the wet vacuum took care of most of this but the floor was still too damp for sealing so I left a couple of air blowers to assist with the drying of the floor and returned two days later to start the sealing.

Terracotta Restoration Before Photo

Terracotta Tile Sealing

When we returned the floor was mainly dry but there were a couple of damp spots which I took care of with a heat gun. Tile Doctor Seal and Go was used to seal the floor; Terracotta can be very porous so eight coats were required to completely seal the floor so it was some time before it was finished.

Terracotta Restoration After Photo Terracotta Restoration After Photo

When I finished I gave the customer instructions on how to maintain the floor. He was over the moon with the result and said that it had far exceeded his expectations.

Another happy customer.

Terracotta Restoration Before and After
 

Terracotta Floor Cleaned and Sealed in Brixton

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Quarry Tiled Floor in Wallington

Quarry Tiled Hallway Floor Cleaned and Sealed in Wallington

The owner of this house wanted her hallway quarry tiles renovating, someone had varnished them around 15 years previously and were now overdue a good clean and seal.

Cleaning Hallway Quarry Tiles

The first step was to scrub in a dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean with a rotary machine fitted with a black scrubbing pad. However this only managed to remove some of the varnish and so I next applied Tile Doctor Remove and Go which is a much stronger product designed for stripping coatings from floors. The process I used was to apply Remove and Go in sections leaving it to dwell for a hour and then scrubbing it with a brush. I rinsed the floor down to reveal a few stubborn spots that needed some further work and then washed the floor down again before leaving it for the evening to dry.

Quarry Tiled Floor in Wallington

Sealing Hallway Quarry Tiles

We returned the next day and began to seal the floor using six coats of Tile Doctor Seal and Go which leaves a nice deep low sheen on the tile surface as well as providing stain protection. The owner was extremely happy with the result and left the feedback below.

“Very professional, worked continuously. A joy to have 2 men working in the house who conversed quietly with no unpleasant language! A superb job done on our (more than 100 year old) quarry tile floor.”

Mrs Quested, Wallingon

 

Quarry Tile Renovation in Wallington

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