LIMESTONE TILED FLOOR CLEANING AND SEALING IN MATLOCK, DERBYSHIRE, DE4

With this Limestone Floor, we got called out to Matlock in Derbyshire. At the eastern flank of the Peak District National Park, Matlock is a town famed for its Victorian spa and the spinning industry launched by Sir Richard Arkwright in the 18th century.
Our customer was worried about acid stains on limestonetiles. We quickly explained that limestone is acid sensitive stone and it will happen, although these etch marks can be removed via burnishing the floor with diamond burnishing pads. We also did a small tester for him and then agreed on work dates.

For cleaning and polishing we used our rotary machine fitted with Diamond burnishing pads, starting from 400 grit and working all the way up to 3000 grit.
We started off with 400 grit, with some water as a lubricant. The first 400 grit removes old sealer and acid stains off the stone floor. When the whole floor was burnished, then all the soiled water got removed with wet vacuum. Next, we moved on to the Medium 800 grit pad which is less coarse than the 400 grit, but rough enough still to break down layers of ingrained dirt. This got followed up with the application of a Fine 1500 grit pad, which started to smooth down the rough areas of the surface to prepare the floor for a final polish with an even finer burnishing pad later on. Between burnishing with 1500 grit and rinsing we also cleaned all grout lines by scrubbing with our special shaped grout brushes and then removed all soiled water.
After the last pad and grout cleaning, limestone floor got rinsed once more and we left the floor to dry till the next day.

When we returned next day to seal the floor, we quickly checked the grout and tiles with our damp tester but fortunately there was no dampness at all, which made our life much easier. When it was completely sure the floor was dry and filled in we used the Very Fine 3000 grit burnishing pad – the last of the four – with very little water as a lubricant to finally achieve a high quality polished finish and then prepared for sealing.

For sealing we used clear impregnating sealer, which leaves the original floor look and gives no extra sheen. The Clear sealer is normally preferred with lighter floors when people want to keep them light coloured and not add anything extra.
This limestone floor took 2 generous coats of the sealer and the excess got wiped off after each coat with white cotton cloths.

Our customer was very happy with the work completed, which again gave us a sense of pride in our work. We also gave him all the everyday cleaning info and recommended a link to our writing about Natural Stone Floor Maintenance Tips: https://www.qualitytilecare.co.uk/maintenance-tips-and-advice-for-your-natural-stone-floors-walls

Tags: Limestone , Floor Cleaning , Natural Stone , Polishing , Honing , Matlock , Derbyshire , burnishing , Derbyshire Quality Tile Care , Sealing , Floor Treatment , Maintenance , DE4 , Derbyshire Floor Cleaning , Limestone Cleaning