At Tile Doctor, we have a long history of bringing tiles back to life – typically after they have experienced many, many years’ worth of neglect. If fact you can see photos on our many websites, that show the dramatic difference we can make.
Keeping a floor looking good once it’s been restored is the job of the sealer which will protect the tile from dirt becoming ingrained in its pores. However, sealers do wear off with use so in most cases we generally recommend you ask us to pop back every six to twelve months to give the floor a quick clean and top-up the sealer. We call this a Tile Doctor Maintenance Plan and it’s designed to ensure your tiles always look their best.
By way of example the photographs on this page are of a beautiful Travertine tiled floor, at a property in the Northamptonshire town of Orlingbury. The floor was originally laid around ten years ago and we were called in three years ago to perform a full restorative clean which took a couple of days to complete. The customer was amazed with the results achieved by the initial work and wanted to ensure it remained that way, so we worked out a maintenance plan for the customer and we pop back every year to do a maintenance clean and top-up the sealer.
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One of the advantages of the maintenance plan is that it can be paid for over the course of the year with monthly instalments, or as a one-off payment once the work is completed. The customer can choose either option.
The photos below show the same Travertine tiled floor after we had performed a maintenance clean for the third time. You won’t see a dramatic difference, just a floor that has retained its natural beauty all year round. This annual clean is far less disruptive than the original full restoration service and can normally be carried out over the course of a single day.
Maintenance Clean and Seal for Travertine Tiled Floor
The products and methods involved in the maintenance clean vary depending on the type of stone. To begin with, we vacuum the floor to remove any debris and then perform a light clean with a Tile Doctor product. This product is usually either Tile Doctor Neutral Tile Cleaner or Stone Soap depending on if the floor is polished stone.
Neutral Tile Cleaner is a pH neutral cleaner that is specially formulated for regular cleaning and ensures your sealed surface remains undamaged. Stone Soap is a similar product for light duty cleaning but with an additive that help build patina.
If we are restoring polished stone, such as Travertine, Marble or Limestone, we proceed to perform a light polish of the tiles using a very fine 3,000 grit Tile Doctor diamond encrusted burnishing pad fitted to a floor polishing machine.
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To finish, the floor is dried quickly using a series of fans and one coat of a Tile Doctor sealant is applied to top up the sealant that was originally applied during the restoration clean. In this situation, we applied Tile Doctor Colour Grow, which is an impregnating, colour-intensifying sealant that dries with a matte finish.
Again, you won’t see a dramatic difference in the pictures above, the idea is to maintain the original finish which given time will degrade as the sealer wears off.
Never use a steam cleaner for the regular cleaning of sealed floors as this will reduce the life of the sealer. For best results we recommend using a mop and two buckets, one containing a neutral PH cleaning fluid such as Tile Doctor Neutral Cleaner and the second where you rinse your mop afterwards, otherwise you will contaminate your cleaning fluid with dirt as you rinse.