silicone staining on granite shower

Dear Sir, I have installed G682 Golden peach Granite from china in 80 shower surrounds. We used two different clear silicones to adhere the granite to the walls and the surrounds that we used with one of these is bleeding the silicone to the surface of the stone. You can distinctly see where each dab of silicone was applied behind all of these surrounds. Do you have a solution for getting rid of these spots or am I going to be replacing all of these surrounds which totals to about a third of the project. Feedback would be very much appreciated. Thank You! Jim Brewer

 

Dear Jim:

Unfortunately, I'm afraid that replacement is the only solution. When whatever was into that silicone compound that bled to the surface, is in fact through and through and probably cured by now.

If you want you could try to pull it out by poulticing one of those stains a few times with a potent paint stripper based on methylene chloride. (Follow all precautionary warnings and directions printed on the container: it is pretty nasty stuff!) If it works you will do it all over. If not… You already know what to do.

Hey, stuff happens and, at the end of the day, it's only money! J

Now remember, it's never too early to think about the proper maintenance of your stone. The issue of what you'll be doing day in and day out to your stone is – as it should be intuitive – vastly more important than its sealing (if and when possible and/or advisable) and it's all too often neglected. As you can tell by reading many of this site's postings, you're not likely to get good information about routine care from your dealer or installer. Don't become another statistic! By logging into the Helpful Hints section of our website at:   http://www.mbstone.com/HH_promo/helpful_hints.htm , you will be able to get the short version of our maintenance guidelines at no charge. The full version of it – a 7-page document considered by many as an industry benchmark – is available in pay-per-download format in our Educational Literature section at:   http://www.mbstone.com/literature/literature.htm .  

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Ciao and good luck,

Mauri z io Bertoli

 

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