Sandstone Tile Cleaning

Welcome to my Work History archive where you will find detailed examples of the cleaning and renovation of Sandstone flooring carried out in Suffolk

Cleaning and Renovating Sandstone Floors

Sandstone is often used for Kitchen and Hallway flooring, however as with any natural stone it needs to be sealed to protect it and bring out its beauty and colouring. One of the biggest problems we find with stone flooring is with the sealer becoming stripped away prematurely by the continuous use of cleaning agents not designed for this type of surface. Without its protective sealer porous stone quickly becomes ingrained with dirt making it increasingly difficult to clean effectively.

Our method for renovating Sandstone typically involves stripping the floor of any existing sealer/coatings, deep cleaning to extract the dirt and then applying a fresh sealer for which I recommend Tile Doctor Colour Grow as it enhances the natural colours in the stone. If the floor is particularly bad, it’s best to resurface it with coarse milling pads which can remove a thin layer from the surface of the stone.

Below you will find detailed examples of work we have carried out in the past, it should give you some idea of what’s involved and what can be achieved with the right techniques and products.


Sandstone Kitchen Floor Renovation Ipswich

Sandstone Floor Renovated in Ipswich Kitchen and Sunroom

This Sandstone tiled floor was in the Kitchen and Sunroom of a house in Ipswich. The protective sealer had clearly worn off and now the floor was really grubby due to the owner being in a wheelchair and the tyres tracked dirt in from the garden.

Sandstone Kitchen Floor Before Cleaning Ipswich

It had been some time since the floor was last sealed and it was clear to me now that the sealer had failed thereby allowing years of dirt and grime to lodge in the pores of the stone leaving it looking permanently dirty. Cleaning with a mop simply won’t make any difference to a floor once it gets in this state which is where Tile Doctor comes in. Also, we often find owners of sealed stone floors don’t realise that most of the tile cleaning products you find in supermarkets are simply too strong for use on a sealed floor and will strip the sealer from the tiles thereby leaving it vulnerable to ingrained dirt.

Sandstone Kitchen Floor Before Cleaning Ipswich

The solution I quoted for including deep cleaning the sandstone tiles and grout and then resealing the whole floor over two days. Unhappy with the floor and keen to have it renovated I was asked to do do the work and so we scheduled a date.

Cleaning/Repairing a Sandstone Tiled Kitchen and Sunroom Floor

To get the Sandstone clean I sprayed the floor with a strong dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean and allowed it to soak in for about ten minutes. The floor was then scrubbed using a 120-grit carborundum silicon carbide brush fitted to a rotary machine. This is a special pad that works really well on riven stone. The resultant slurry was rinsed off with water and extracted with a wet vacuum.

I then turned my attention to the grout which often needs extra attention as the pads can struggle to reach into the recesses of the grout lines. For these I used more Tile Doctor Pro-Clean and hand scrubbed where required with a stiff brush. I also used this time to inspect the floor and spot clean any stubborn areas of dirt on the sandstone that needed more attention.

Sandstone Kitchen Floor During Cleaning Ipswich

After a final rinse and extraction, the stone and grout were looking much cleaner however I needed it to be completely dry before applying the sealer so after extracting as much moisture as possible I left it to dry off overnight. The cleaning has taken the whole of the first day and had used two litres of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean.

Sealing a Sandstone Tiled Kitchen and Sunroom Floor

On day two I started by checking the floor was dry using a damp meter; the moisture readings were fine, and this confirmed the floor was ready to accept a sealer. The sealer chosen for this floor was Tile Doctor Seal & Go Extra, I applied four coats allowing each coat to dry before applying the next consuming three litres of sealer in the process.

Sandstone Kitchen Floor After Cleaning Ipswich

The floor is now clean and has a nice, easy to maintain sheen. The new sealer will prevent dirt becoming lodged in the pores of the tiles allowing the floor to keep its looks for many years to come. For cleaning I recommended they use Tile Doctor Neutral Cleaner which is a gentle but effective product recommended for use on sealed stone.

Sandstone Kitchen Floor After Cleaning Ipswich

 

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Sandstone Flags before after cleaning

Sandstone flagstone floor cleaned in Boxford, Suffolk

This sandstone flagstone floor measured around 15m2 and was installed in a house in the village of Boxford, Suffolk, you can see how dark the stone had become from the build-up of dirt and soil over time, clearly they were in need of a deep clean and seal.

Sandstone Flags before cleaning Sandstone Flags before cleaning

Cleaning Sandstone

We cleaned the floor using Tile Doctor Pro-Clean diluted with 10 parts warm water and worked in using a Black Scrubbing pad. This action certainly gave the floor a good clean but there were some staining that was proving stubborn to shift so we tried a stronger product called Remove and Go combined 50/50 with NanoTech UltraClean which add nano sized abrasive particles into the mix. We left the resulting formula to soak into the sandstone for about a while and then used a steam to penetrate deep into the pores of the stone and lift out the dirt, this did the trick and so we then removed the cleaning products with a wet vacuum and washed down the floor with clean water to neutralise the floor before sealing and left for the evening so the floor could dry overnight.

Sealing a Sandstone Tiled Floor

We came back the next day, the floor had dried overnight so we proceeded to seal the Sandstone with Tile Doctor Seal and Go which gives a nice low sheen finish; Sandstone is fairly porous so it took five coats of sealer in the end. Seal and Go is a topical sealer which works well on Sandstone to really bring out the veins and natural colour in the stone, it also leaves them a lot easier to clean as flagstones invariably have a rough riven surface.

Sandstone Flags after cleaning Sandstone Flags after cleaning

 

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Sandstone floor before after sealing

Sandstone Tile Cleaning in Beyton

We were called into Clean and Seal 36m2 of Sandstone tile flooring installed in the Kitchen, Utility, Hallway and Cloakroom of a house in the Suffolk village of Beyton. The sandstone floor tile was laid around 10 years prior, the tiles had never been sealed and despite regular cleaning the riven surface had become a natural home for dust and grime.

Sandstone Tile Cleaning

Cleaning the floor was straight forward using a dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean which is a very effective and flexible cleaning product recommended for natural stone surfaces, it was a large area so we used around 5 litres in total. We washed the floor down with clean water to remove any remaining product and then left it to dry over night.

Sandstone floor before sealing Sandstone floor before sealing

Sealing Sandstone Tile

The sandstone tile sealer we chose for the floor was Tile Doctor Colour Grow, it leaves a matt finish as opposed to a shiny polished effect but it does bring out the colour in the Sandstone tile, we used around 5 litres of sealer to complete the floor.

Sandstone floor after cleaning and sealing Sandstone floor after cleaning and sealing

 

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