I thought I would share this job with you as its surprising some of the jobs I get to do as a Tile Doctor. In this case I was asked to visit a newly purchased property in North of Longbenton that had a rather spectacular swimming pool with a Marble tiled surround.
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The customer wanted to improve the look of the pool tiles which hadn’t been maintained for a while and had watermarks from the pool and a few of the tiles were scratched and cracked.
I arranged a time to pop over and visit the property so I could survey the condition of the Marble tiles and work out what would be needed to restore their appearance. On the most part I could see they still had a shine but were looking a little dull and in need of a polish which should also remove the scratches.
The rich brown tones and distinct white veins in the Marble resembled a Spanish stone known as “Emperador Dark Marble” which is very expensive and can be polished to a high shine.
I was confident the Marble could be renovated to a high standard and the faded colours restored. Keen to have the work done I worked out a detailed quotation which was accepted and a date scheduled.
Deep Cleaning Emperador Marble Swimming Pool Tiles
The first job was to give the entire floor a good clean including the grout lines. For this a dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean was brushed onto the floor, left to dwell and then agitated with a red buffing pad fitted to a rotary machine. This removed all the dirt trapped in the grout and the tiles bringing it to the surface where it was caught in the cleaning solution. The solution turns into a dark slurry during the process before being rinsed off with water and extracted with a wet vacuum leaving the area clean.
Naturally you have to be careful when working near the edge of the pool and ensure that none of the solution gets into the pool water. Fortunately, the pool had a hard cover fitted so only a small amount of protection was required near the water’s edge.
The next step was to repair the cracks using a resin filler which is carefully colour matched to the colour of the Marble. The next step of polishing would ensure that the excess resin is smoothed down and undetectable from the surrounding stone.
Polishing Emperador Marble Tiles to a High Shine
Then it was onto polishing the Marble with a set of Tile Doctors Diamond burnishing pads. You start with the application of a coarse 400-grit pad, then move onto medium 800-grit pad, fine 1500-grit pad and finishing with the extra fine 3500-grit pad.
The pads are fitted to a rotary floor buffer and are run over each tile using water for lubrication. The floor is rinsed between the application of each pad with the fine slurry that is generated extracted with the wet vacuum.
The last step was to add a durable finish to the Marble using Tile Doctor Shine Powder with a horsehair pad. This really made the tiles pop with a very deep shine. Following that the floor was rinsed and left to dry.
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With a swimming pool area, a sealer is not advisable as the chlorine will eat into it quickly and take it away, so I used a Stone Soap which seals the floor naturally and if used with a regular cleaning schedule it will protect the floor and keep the floor sealed going forward.
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Source: Marble Tile Transformation Service in Longbenton Tyneside