Ashtead Archives - East Surrey Tile Doctor

Quarry Tiled Floor Cleaned and Sealed in Ashtead

A while ago I was asked to quote to clean up an old quarry tiled floor in a converted barn in Ashtead. Whilst I was there I carried out a test patch for the lady to show what the results would be; she had said that if she wasn’t satisfied she was going to replace the floor so she must have met her expectations as a week later we were given the go ahead to carry out the work.

Cleaning Hallway Quarry Tiles

Fortunately for us they had recently removed the old kitchen and scheduled us after to clean the quarry tiles before completing the decorating and refitting a new kitchen. We cleaned the tiles using a mixture of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean diluted 1:4 parts with water and Nanotech Ultraclean which adds tiny abrasive particles into the cleaning solution. Normally I would work this into the floor using a black scrubbing pad however the floor was very uneven so I used a medium nylon brush on my rotary machine instead, this had the added advantage of reaching into the grout as well. I should mention we thoroughly rinsed the floor as we went along using a wet vacuum to remove the soiled solution. It took two of us two days to scrub the areas that had to be done and we had a blower running to help dry out the floor.

Sealing Hallway Quarry Tiles

We returned three days later and carried out moisture test to ensure the floors were dry and ready to be sealed. The Quarry tiles were then sealed them with five coats of Tile Doctor Colour Grow which is an impregnating sealer that reaches into the pores of the tile and lifts the natural colours. The owner was extremely happy with the floor and couldn’t wait to have her new kitchen installed to see how it would look.

Old Quarry Tiles Restored in Ashtead, Surrey

Applying Ant-Slip to a shiny Porcelain Patio

Last week we were asked to carry out a demonstration of our AntiSlip Treatment for a lady in Ashtead Surrey. She has white shiny Porcelain tiles laid on a patio area and when they get wet they are really slippery and dangerous and she was especially concerned about young children hurting themselves. We carried out a test patch for her and asked her to see if she could slip, not only did she try, but her gran and mother-in-law also tried and were extremely impressed. I left her with our quotation so she could discuss it with her husband. The next day I received a call asking me to go ahead and carry out the works.

Applying the Anti-Slip Solution

When applying this treatment it is vital that you follow all the guidelines and times for the different types of stone. It is a 3 stage application, the first is the primer which is mixed 4 : 1 which we scrubbed into small areas of about 6m2 at a time, when scrubbing we used a brush head on our rotary scrubbing machine which has the added advantage of cleaning the tiles.

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After about 5 minutes of scrubbing using a scrubbing pad we then vacuumed it all and left the tiles to dry and because we were outside in the sun it didn’t take long to dry. The next stage is to apply the Antislip treatment and for this we used a flat mop and for these type of tiles we needed to leave it to dwell for between 3 and 5 minutes, but we had to make sure that it did not dry in.

After the dwell time the 3rd stage is to scrub in another solution of the primer, but this time it locks in the Antislip. When you are scrubbing this stage you can feel the treatment working. Once we have completed this stage we vacuum it all up then rinse the area with fresh water to remove any residues.

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The complete area was around 50m2 and luckily the treatment package covered this area. In all the application took two of us around five hours to complete and after clearing our equipment away we then put all the garden furniture back in place.

We returned the next day because the customer also asked us to clean their driveway and the patio area was wet because of rain, but it was great to walk on and I did not slip at all.

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The customer was really happy, because if the treatment hadn’t worked her only other option would have been to rip up the tiles and replace them at a cost of thousands and to make things even better for her, this treatment will last around 4 years before she needs to have it re-applied.

Preventing slips and trips on shiny porcelain patio tiles

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