Tag Archives: shower cubicle

Deep Cleaning a Stained Marble shower enclosure in South Wales

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Tiled shower cubicles can very easily become tired and grubby looking without the right care. The shampoos and soaps we use in our everyday lives can have long lasting damage if their effects are not sufficiently dealt with, with grout mould being a very common problem for property owners in the UK where we have a cold climate that encourages us to seal up our homes limiting natural ventilation.

Marble Shower Enclosure Tiles Before Cleaning in Beddau

At this property in the small village of Beddau, near Cardiff, my customer had a particularly poorly maintained Marble tiled shower cubicle suffering from bad staining. Since Marble is an acid-sensitive stone it is especially vulnerable to damage when exposed to even slightly acidic shower products. The grout was also in a bad way, having turned from a pleasant off white colour to black. The entire area was now well overdue from some attention from the Tile Doctor.

Marble Shower Enclosure Tiles Before Cleaning in Beddau

Cleaning a Marble Tiled Shower Cubicle

To begin the restoration of these tiles I had to remove any old sealer. I did this by applying a combination of Tile Doctor Pro Clean, which is a versatile cleaner, stripper and degreaser, and Tile Doctor NanoTech HBU, which is a more powerful product designed for the removal of heavy soil buildup.

As the old sealer came away, I left the two products to soak into the tiles to lift out the stains and ingrained dirt caused by the Marble’s exposure to shampoo and soaps. This really helped to alleviate the grubby appearance previously held by the tiles.

As previously mentioned, the grout lines were also in a really bad state. Undeterred, I attempted for three hours to clean the grout lines with unsatisfactory results, and so resolved instead to remove the old grout entirely and re-grout with a new Jasmine coloured grout throughout the bathroom. I did consider simply recolouring the grout with one of our Grout Colourants but, as an experienced tiler, I felt for me it would quicker and easier to achieve the required results by re-grouting.

Marble Shower Enclosure Tiles During Cleaning in Beddau

Sealing a Marble Tiled Shower Cubicle

After leaving the grout and tiles to dry overnight following the cleaning and regrouping, I returned to the property to seal the area. To do this I opted to use two coats of Tile Doctor Colour Grow, our solvent-based impregnating sealer which fills the pores of the stone to act as a barrier against trapped dirt and stains, and to prevent further contamination.

As a colour intensifying sealer it really emphasised the natural shades in the Marble. Colour Grow can achieve similar results on other types of unpolished stone, including Limestone, Flagstones, Quarry, Sandstone and Slate.

Marble Shower Enclosure Tiles After Cleaning in Beddau

I added the finishing touches to the restoration by removing all the mouldy silicone and replaced it with new silicone. Though this wasn’t the easiest of jobs, the final result is one of which I am particularly proud. It certainly pleased the customer!

Marble Shower Enclosure Tiles After Cleaning in Beddau

 
 
Source: Marble Tile Cleaning and Renovation Service in South Wales

Restoring the Appearance of Damaged Marble Shower Tiles

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I recently went the assistance of a home owner in Addlestone, Surrey who had damaged the surface of the Marble tiles in her shower by attempting to remove Limescale using a well-known household cleaning product, which unfortunately due to its acidic formula actually made the problem worse and etched the tiles.

Limescale on Marble Shower Tiles Addlestone

Burnishing Marble Shower Cubicle Tiles

To remove the etching and Limescale from the Marble tiles the surface would need to be cut back and re-polished using diamond encrusted burnishing pads. For this job we used a set of six inch pads which are similar to the floor pads but smaller so they can be attached to a hand held machine and used on vertical surfaces.

To burnish the tiles a coarse pad is applied first lubricated with a little water and this removes surface deposits such as Limescale and in this case also the etching. The resultant residue is washed away and then you proceed on with the Medium, Fine and Very Fine polishing pads until the surface has been restored.

Sealing Marble Shower Tiles

Once I had finished applying the Very Fine pad I gave the tiles a thorough rinse and then dried them so they could be sealed for which I used a coat of Tile Doctor Colour Grow which is an impregnating sealer that gets into the pores of the stone enhancing the natural colours in the process.

Limescale removed from Marble Shower Tiles Addlestone

The owner was really grateful because she was thinking that they would need to be replaced which as you can imagine would have been very expensive.
 
 
Source: Tile, Stone and Grout Problems resolved in Surrey

Removating old Marble Flagstones in West-Sussex

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Apologies in advance but I’m going to start this post with a warning; there are some very strong cleaning products available in supermarkets and most of which are completely unsuitable for use on natural stone floors because they contain acid. Even weak acids used over time will erode and reduce the life of a sealer and can lead to small holes appearing in your tiles so you do need to be careful what you apply and always read the label.

The reason I mention this is I recently had a client in the village of Woodmancote with a Marble Tiled En-Suite who had sent over some photographs showing how the tiles had become marked after using Cilit Bang to clean them. Cilit Bang is a very strong product and has a great reputation for tackling tricky cleaning problems however it contains Benzenesulfonic Acid so it should not to be used on Stone. If you check the literature it does not say it can be used on stone although it does mention the product can be used on tiles and I suspect this is where the confusion comes from as I suspect it should say ceramic tiles.

Getting back to the story I informed the client that it was tricky to tell from the photographs what would be required so I offered to pop round when next in the area and take a look. We offer a free no obligation home-survey so I arranged a site inspection and after the meeting I was confident that I could repair the damage to a level that meant that that it would be barely noticeable to the naked eye.

Damaged Marble Shower Tiles in Woodmancote Before Damaged Marble Shower Tiles in Woodmancote Before

Polishing Marble Shower Tiles

To resolve the problems I started by giving the Marble Tiles a general clean with a dilution of Tile Doctor Pro Clean and then followed this up by burnishing the stone with a 6 inch coarse diamond burnishing pad fitted to a hand held rotary machine. After going over the damaged area with this I then used the medium, find and super fine pads to restore the surface and build up the polish in the stone.

Sealing Marble Shower Tiles

When this was complete and I was satisfied that I had done all that was possible I waited for the Marble to dry and applied two coats of Tile Doctor Ultra Seal which is a penetrating sealer that will occupy the pores in the stone and prevent dirt become ingrained there. When the sealer was dry I gave it a light buff using a small Green pad. This added to the sheen and improved the way the Marble blended in with the surrounding Marble.

Damaged Marble Shower Tiles in Woodmancote After Damaged Marble Shower Tiles in Woodmancote After

It would have been impossible to get rid of the stain entirely but I’m happy to say by the time I had finished you could not notice the marks unless you looked at the area at point blank range and you knew where to look!
 
 
Source: Tile, Stone and Grout Restoration Service in West-Sussex

Multiple Marble Wall And Floor Tiles Cleaned

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This job was to refresh the Marble tile installed in a house in Woking. There were a number of different marble tiles installed on the wall and floor including two shower cubicles, a bathroom floor, a small cloakroom floor and the kitchen floor; the pictures below show before and after photographs for each job.

Cleaning a Marble Tile Shower Cubicle

I started with the shower cubicles using Tile Doctor Oxy-Pro which is a specific product for cleaning showers and comes with a spray attachment that mixes the cleaning agent with air making it lighter and helping it stick to vertical surfaces. This was left to dwell on the surface for a while and then the tiles were scrubbed before being rinsed down. This action not only cleaned the dirt and soap scum off the tile it also got rid of some mould that had started to grow.

Marble Shower Cublicle Marble Shower Cubicle

In one shower there was a build-up of limescale on the wall so to get rid of this I used a little Tile Doctor Grout Clean-up, this product is usually for removing grout smears from tile however it’s also good at removing most types of mineral deposits such as Limescale, you do have to be quick though as it’s an Acid based product I had to be quick and to thoroughly rinse because I didn’t want to damage the marble.

Marble Mosaic Bathroom floor tile cleaning

The next job was to tackle the bathroom floor which was tiled with small Marble mosaic tiles. A long time was spent cleaning and scrubbing the grout of this floor using a solution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean mixed 50/50 with NanoTech Ultra-Clean to add tiny abrasive particles making a very effective tile cleaner. Again once the cleaning was finished cleaning the floor was rinsed thoroughly with clean water to remove any cleaning product.

Marble floor Tiles Before Cleaning Marble floor Tiles After Cleaning

Marble Kitchen floor tile cleaning

The next floor on the list was the kitchen floor, again all Marble tile; on this I used a rotary scrubbing machine fitted with a medium brush head and again a mixture of Pro-Clean and NanoTech UltraClean. The reason I used a brush head instead of a scrubbing pad is because it is a textured marble the brushes will get into the nooks and crannies, the grout was especially stained in this area and this is now much improved.

Marble Kitchen Floor Tile Before Marble Kitchen Floor Tile After

Marble Cloakroom floor cleaning

The last floor on the list to do was the cloakroom WC which was cleaned using the same method as on the bathroom floor described above using the Pro-Clean, NanoTech, and UltraClean mixture worked in with some elbow grease.

Marble Cloakroom- WC Floor

Once everything had been cleaned, and rinsed. I left it all to dry out overnight.

Sealing Marble Tiles

The following day before I sealed I checked everything just in case I had missed anything, but it was all okay. I sealed everything twice using Tile Doctor Colour Grow and checked that the tiles were properly sealed by doing a water test. When sealing you have to make sure that you don’t let the seal puddle so I buff the tiles with terry towelling and on the large areas I also buff the floors with a white buffing pad.

As you can imagine this was a very large job and when everything was eventually finished the lady said she was really happy and couldn’t believe how the tiles had come out, she even had her neighbours round to see how it all turned out and they were all suitably impressed.
 
 
Souce: Cleaning and Sealing Marble wall and floor tiles in Surrey