Don’t rip it out! Renovate your marble floor
It’s easy to become convinced that the stone floor in your home or commercial property is beyond repair. Ingrained dirt, uneven surfaces and grout problems can make even the best materials – such as marble tiles – look dreadful and create a trip hazard. Given property owners’ instinct to replace floors in bad condition, Cornwell Services was delighted to be given the task of marble floor cleaning and restoration at a home in Ely, Cambridgeshire. We were able to rescue the marble floor tiles in the kitchen for a fraction of what it would have cost the homeowner to replace the floor. That’s a great result for our client.
Cambridgeshire marble floor renovation
The issue for the property owner in Cambridgeshire was that their marble kitchen floor had been poorly laid two years earlier. The floor had extreme lippage with some tiles sitting higher than others resulting in an uneven surface. The marble tiles had also not been grouted. Given the disappointing workmanship of the original tiler the client was not satisfied with the floor and considered removing the tiles would be their only option. Fortunately, they contacted Cornwell Services first to see if the floor could be saved. It could!
The work to clean and restore the marble floor took only two days, with Cornwell Services returning to the property once the floor was dry in order to seal it.
The stone floor cleaning & restoration process
Saul Cornwell at Cornwell Services worked on this project. He masked off the kitchen units and grouted the floor ready for grinding and de-lipping. With the kitchen units protected and the grout dry, the following day he was able to create an even surface using a 150kg machine kitted out with heavy duty metal bond diamond tooling. This process is classed as grinding, but it’s completely dust-free since water is used to create an abrasive slurry. This rapidly removes the high spots from the tiles creating a flat but scratched surface.
Once the marble floor in the kitchen was completely level, Saul used Stage 2 and 3 metal bond diamonds to reduce the deep scratch patterns. These scratch patterns were further reduced at Stages 4, 5, 6 and 7 using resin bond diamonds, until the floor became reflective. Saul also tackled edges and corners with smaller specialist machines so that the entire floor was in pristine condition.
During the final process before sealing Saul used high quality polishing powders under a lighter rotary machine with a natural hair pad. This created a high gloss shine, leaving the marble floor beautifully smooth with a reflective finish. Once dry, a specialised impregnating seal was applied and buffed until dry to prevent the ingress of water and oil-based spills in future.
The client was astounded that such dramatic results could be achieved with a floor that would otherwise have been ripped up and replaced. To find out whether we could restore your floor with our specialist stone floor cleaning and renovation service please contact Saul at Cornwell Services on 07738 022813. We work for homeowners and businesses across Hertfordshire, Essex, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and north London.
