Merstham Tile Cleaning

Merstham Tile Cleaning

Welcome to my Work History archive where you will find examples of the cleaning and renovation of tiles carried out in Merstham.

Travertine Kitchen Floor Before and After Renovation in Sanderstead

Renovating Travertine Kitchen Floor Tiles in Sanderstead

This customer, who lives in Sanderstead located between Croydon and Purley in Surrey had been experiencing difficulties in keeping her beautiful Travertine tiled kitchen floor in good condition. Over the years it had suffered from a heavy build up of dirt and oily stains, not to mentioned a number of cracks and small holes. Needless to say, the customer was keen to have the Travertine tiles and grout renovated and made easier to keep clean.

Travertine Kitchen Floor Before Cleaning Sanderstead Travertine Kitchen Floor Before Cleaning Sanderstead

Restoring Travertine Flooring

To begin the renovation, I applied Tile Doctor Remove and Go across the entirety of the large tiled area. This heavy duty remover breaks down any old sealers and other coatings, leaving the area ready to cleaned or, in this case, burnished.

Burnishing is a method for cleaning and polishing certain types of high-end stone, including Travertine, Marble, and Limestone. Our burnishing system involves the application of four diamond encrusted pads of varying grits. Firstly, I applied the Coarse grit pad, which helps to break down any dirt and stains on the surface of the tiles. Then, I worked my way through the Medium, Fine, and Very Fine pads, using a little water which acts to lubricate the process gradually building the polish on the Travertine. The floor is rinsed with water between the application of each pad to remove the soil that is generated and also give a final rinse at the end before leaving to dry.

To round off the first day of work, I filled any cracks and holes in the Travertine using a colour matching resin which greatly improved the look of the tile.

Travertine Kitchen Floor Cracked Tile Before Repair Sanderstead Travertine Kitchen Floor Cracked Tile After Repair Sanderstead

Sealing Travertine Tiles

The following day I returned to the property to seal the tiles checking first that the floor had dried. I use a moisture meter to do this and it confirmed the floor was dry so I proceeded to seal the floor using our colour intensifying impregnating sealer Tile Doctor Colour Grow. Once that was dry, I added the finishing touches by buffing the floor with a soft white buffing pad. As you can see from the photographs, the combination of a fresh seal and polish worked wonders.

Travertine Kitchen Floor After Sealing Sanderstead
We did such a good job with the floor that the customer asked if we could also improve the appearance of their natural stone fireplace which was suffering from bad rust and oil stains however I do a separate write up on that.

Travertine Kitchen Floor After Sealing Sanderstead
 

Cracked Travertine Tiled Kitchen Floor Fully Restored in Surrey

Renovating Travertine Kitchen Floor Tiles in Sanderstead Read More »

Marble Tiles Indian Restaurant South Croydon Before and After

Marble Tiled Floor Cleaned and Polished in South Croydon Restaurant

I was asked by my local Indian restaurant in South Croydon if I could improve the look of their marble tiles in the reception area of the restaurant. They had been laid several years ago and now the sealer was failing and dirt was becoming ingrained in the tile and especially the grout which had gone dark.

Marble Tiles Indian Restaurant South Croydon Before Marble Tiles Indian Restaurant South Croydon Before

Marble Tile and Grout Cleaning

To get the grout clean and remove the surface dirt we started with the application of a coarse grade diamond encrusted burnishing pad, the pad is used in conjunction with a little water which helps lubricate the process and it effectively cuts back the layer of grime from the surface. Rotary pads do struggle to reach into the grout lines so a medium dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean which is a heavy duty tile and grout cleaner that’s safe to use on natural stone and grout was also scrubbed into the grout by hand using a stiff brush.

Marble Tiles Indian Restaurant South Croydon During Cleaning Marble Tiles Indian Restaurant South Croydon During Cleaning

The floor was then rinsed to remove the now dirty water and cleaning solution and we moved on to polishing the floor using a medium grade, fine and then super fine pads to build the surface shine backup. The floor was rinsed with water in-between each pad and then dried out as thoroughly as possible using large air movers.

Sealing Marble Floor Tiles

Normally I would have finished off with the application of Tile Doctor Shine Powder to give it a mirror like finish but the owner was happy with the way it looked and so once the floor had dried we moved onto sealing it with two coats of Tile Doctor Colour Grow which is an impregnating sealer that works from the inside by occupying the pores within the stone, it also enhance the colours within natural stone.

Marble Tiles Indian Restaurant South Croydon After Cleaning Marble Tiles Indian Restaurant South Croydon After Cleaning

The owner was over the moon with the results and has now engaged us to maintain the floor on a regular basis.

Marble Tiles Indian Restaurant South Croydon Before and After Marble Tiles Indian Restaurant South Croydon Before and After

 

Cleaning and Polishing a Marble Tiled floor in a Surrey Restaurant

Marble Tiled Floor Cleaned and Polished in South Croydon Restaurant Read More »

Quarry Tile Kitchen Floor Before and After

Quarry Tiled Hallway Floor Cleaned and Sealed in Brixton

These photographs are from a Quarry Tile Cleaning job we did for a lady in Brixton recently, as you can see from the early pictures they were not only dirty but there was also evidence of an old sealer and splashes of paint on them as well both of which would have to be removed first.

Quarry Tile Kitchen Floor Before Quarry Tile Kitchen Floor Before

Cleaning Hallway Quarry Tiles

The first task we did on arrival was to disconnect her cooker and washing machine which were placed outside in the garden, this would allow us to get at all the tiled areas and also meant there was less to protect.

Working in small sections the next step was to pre-wet the floor tiles followed by adding a dilution of Tile Doctor Remove and Go combined 50/50 with Nanotech UltraClean, these two products combine to make a powerful cleaner/stripper that’s safe to use on tile. The cleaning solution was left to soak into the tile whilst we set up all of our equipment and added protective coverings to the kitchen units, walls and adjoining floors.

After about forty five minutes we re-wet the areas and hand scrubbed the tiles using scouring pads. This process was repeated covering small areas at a time until the kitchen was finished. We then used our scrubbing machine with a medium brush head fitted and thoroughly rinsed the floor to remove any trace of chemical.

We needed the floor dry for sealing so a couple of Turbo blowers we setup to force dry the floor and this took a couple of hours before my moisture meter told me that the floor was dry enough.

Sealing Hallway Quarry Tiles

After discussing sealer choices with the customer it was decided to seal the floor with Tile Doctor Colour Grow which provides a natural finish whilst lifting the natural colours in the tile. Two coats were sufficient and once it had dried we refitted the cooker and washing machine, put all the plinths back and removed all of our protective coverings.

Quarry Tile Kitchen Floor After Quarry Tile Kitchen Floor After

The lady was really pleased with our work and left the following testimonial.

“Bill did a fantastic job on my kitchen floor, I can’t thank him enough. Mrs Scott, Brixton”

Quarry Tile Kitchen Floor Before and After
 

Quarry Tile Renovation in Brixton

Quarry Tiled Hallway Floor Cleaned and Sealed in Brixton Read More »

Factory Floor Before and After

Latex Glue Removed from Factory Floor in Croydon

We recently carried out a clean for a printing company in the London Borough of Croydon, who had removed some machinery and had found that the exposed floor had large amounts of latex glue left on the floor. In fact the floor was in such a bad state due to the amount of dirt, oil and glue no one could determine what type of floor we were dealing with.

Factory Floor Before and After

Factory Floor Cleaning

My first task was to scrub the dirt away using a strong dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean followed by a good rinse, Pro-Clean is a strong alkaline cleaner so it’s safe to use on all sorts of floors and won’t eat into the surface like an acidic cleaners. Once the dirt was removed we discovered the floor was in fact resin based.

Latex Glue Removal

The next thing to do was remove the glue for the floor which was really hard to do due to the thick build-up. We first started with steamers to heat the glue and then used large floor scrapers to lift as much as we could, finally we soaked the area with Tile Doctor Remove and Go and left the solution to Dwell for an hour after which we were able to scrape the remaining glue off.

Last but not least we gave the floor one more scrub with a weak dilution of Pro-Clean and a final rinse.

Factory Floor Before and After
 

Factory Floor Cleaning in Croydon

Latex Glue Removed from Factory Floor in Croydon Read More »

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

Terracotta Tiled Floor Sealing Read More »

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

Quarry Tiled Hallway Floor Cleaned and Sealed in Wallington Read More »

Marble Tiled Floor Polish and Grout Refresh near Croydon

These photographs were taken at a house in Forestdale near Croydon in Surrey where we were engaged to clean and buff a dull Marble tiled floor; we were also asked to re-colour the grout which had become stained.

Marble Floor Before Polishing

Marble Tiled Floor Polishing

We used a set of diamond encrusted Twister Burnishing Pads fitted to a rotary buffing machine to polish the floor. The pads come in a set of four; you start with the Red pad together with plain water and this cuts through and removes surface grime and any surface seal. You then progress through one by one until you get to the final Green polishing pad which provides a high polish.

After this I mixed some Tile Doctor Shine crystallising powder with water, the Shine product provides a very high shine and tough durable finish. I used a White |Buffing pad to work the Shine powder into the tiles. After five minutes the residue was removed using a wet vacuum and I used the opposite side of the white pad and some plain water and carried on for another five minutes. Once complete I vacuumed the remaining water off and then with a clean dry white pad buffed up the floor to leave a deep lasting shine.

Recolouring the Grout

The last step was to refresh the grout using a tube of White Grout Colour applied with a toothbrush and then left for a couple of hours before using a white scrubbing pad and a little water spray to remove excess colourant. When I had finished the owner of the house said the floor looked better than it did when it was first laid.

Marble Floor After Polishing and Grout Refresh

 
 

Marble Tile Floor Polish and Grout Refresh in Forestdale, Surrey

Marble Tiled Floor Polish and Grout Refresh near Croydon Read More »

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East Surrey Tile Doctor

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