travertine all over the house

I have chosen honed Roman Travertine for use on most of my countertops throughout the house except the kitchen which is granite.Will this be a maintenance nightmare since it will be used in laundry rooms as well as bathrooms? I have had honed,chiseled edge travertine floors installed in half of my new house. The builder covered some of the floors with paper to protect them but some are not covered and red clay is being tracked in from outside and getting into the grout and on the travertine floor. The floor and grout are newly installed and no sealer/impregnator has been applied yet. Will red clay harm the grout and tile. The builder says there should be no concern about this since he can have the red clay cleaned off easily. Am I being too picky or is the builder uninformed? Please let me know. Thanks, Carol

 

Dear Carol:

If the grout is sanded, I would be extremely concerned with the red clay. The stone should no be affected by it, though. Yet, why not protect it all over the house and only in part of it?

That said, the future maintenance of your travertine should not be a big deal if you learn the basic procedures and appropriate products to us on it. Considering that you have it all over the house, the sealing of your stone with a good-quality stone impregnating sealer like MB-4 is recommended. But what is even more recommended is that you use the right routine products, which – as it should be intuitive – are more important than the sealing.

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,

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