We love restoring your natural stone. If this is the first time you’ve used a professional stone restoration service, here’s a few things you should know.
Professional stone restoration and cleaning systems are all water-based. This means that no dust is produced. The process uses fresh water and diamond abrasives to gently resurface and revive your stone. The waste slurry is removed and disposed of without effecting your home or the environment. Each machine is also fitted with a splash guard to avoid overspray. We use a low tack specialist decorators tape and sheets to protect your walls and the surrounds of the room.
We may also recommend the application of a bead of transparent ‘Illbruck’ natural stone safe silicone sealant to the joints between floor and skirting boards, kitchen cabinets, plinths, and fixed furniture. This mitigates as much water-damage as is possible during the treatment that can particularly impact MDF.
This is often the initial reason that someone will seek professional stone restoration. For lighter coloured stone in particular, the grout is usually the first thing that you notice. All of our services include the cleaning of grout. It might be the smallest part of our work, but we know that fresh grout can lift the entire floor.
It may be worth considering a restoration service to help with easier maintenance of your grout. When we use diamond abrasives on your stone, this evens out the surface of the tiles. This will help to prevent dirt from being caught where one tile is slightly higher than the other. For older stone, we would always recommend a resurface over a clean as this will expose a fresh stone surface.
We will always aim to provide an estimate of the time required to complete the works that we have quoted for. The quote that we have provided takes into account the time, equipment and consumables required to restore your floor as per our experts’ recommendation. However, please note that as a natural product, all stone will respond differently to even the most tried and tested method. Occasionally, we will recommend carrying out a sample before we visit to restore your stone. This will enable us to not only perfect the method, but allows you to see the expected result.
There’s often different options for the professional stone restoration service that we can offer. There is value in full-scale restoration surfaces for floors, no matter what condition they are in, because of the long-lasting benefits and ease of maintenance. We appreciate however that the investment in full restoration isn’t always applicable. We can offer light restoration, resurfacing and deep cleaning treatments which are less expensive and time consuming for us to undertake. The options that are applicable to your stone will be discussed during the initial visit to your home. Further information on the process involved in each of these options can also be found on our Services pages.
Only a very tiny, insignificant amount of stone is removed as part of our professional stone restoration services. The most aggressive process that we carry out uses metal bonded diamond abrasives to remove lippage and deep scratches to a stone. Even this method will only remove millimetres of stone, and only in the ‘high points’.
The longer that you can leave your floor, the better the finish will be. We would ask that you avoid walking on your stone floor with outdoor shoes full stop, but appreciate that this can be difficult with guests. The curing time of the sealant is dependant on your stone type and the sealant that is being used. We would usually recommend at least an hour before you walk across the floor.
We tend to work in small areas at a time meaning that you can still walk through your property throughout the restoration process. The only time that we ask for the entire area to be available is when we are applying the sealant. Usually this will have dried enough for you to walk on in bare feet or socks by the time we have finished applying the last coat. We ask that you do not mop the floor for 48 hours after our visit as this will impact the sealant.
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