How can I clean my natural stone?
19th September 2014
We get asked this question a lot. Almost every day in fact. A lot of people are put off having natural stone as they think there is a lot of cleaning and sealing involved, however this should not be the case. If cared for and looked after properly, natural stone should be easy to clean and maintain and bring many years of enjoying its natural beauty.
The best way to protect a stone floor is to seal it. We recommend sealing the tiles twice – once before grouting and once after grouting. This means that both tiles and grout are protected, to avoid any grubby grout lines. Sealing protects the tiles from staining, so if you enjoy a glass of red wine and spill some on the tiles (wasteful!) then it will not permanently stain the stone. The sealer acts as a barrier to stop the liquid soaking into the stone so it can be wiped straight up without leaving marks on the stone tiles. Our sealer, SEALAStone, has been tested with all of products to ensure it is compatible and works as well as we expect.
In terms of cleaning the stone, it is just a case of regular sweeping and mopping as you would with any floor. We recommend using a natural stone cleaner, such as SEALAStone’s Powerclean for general maintenance or Degreaser for floors which need a bit more attention. These cleaners have been developed alongside the SEALAStone sealer and are suitable for natural stone floors. You should never use bleach or cleaners with harsh chemicals on natural stone, as this can strip the sealer and leave the stone exposed to staining.
A lot of customers are concerned as they think the tiles will need sealing every year. With our sealer, this is not the case. In high traffic areas, the sealer will last around five years. In less busy areas, it can last as long as seven years. Applying the sealer is easy and can be done with a clean cloth, paintbrush or roller.
If you do have a natural stone floor which hasn’t been sealed properly, all is not lost. The pictures below show some Dijon Tumbled Limestone tiles which hadn’t been properly sealed. It was cleaned with the SEALAStone degreaser, with the pictures showing before and after. We couldn’t believe the difference! The tiles were then sealed again (properly this time) and have become a lot easier to maintain and made a real feature of the floor again – in a good way this time.
