Honed marble Floors and Black Absolute cleaning

First of all, I wanted to let you know, that I'm learning so much for you Maurizio. I'm glad that I found someone who can answe my questions online. Anyway let's start: I have some installers put a 1300 SQ Ft of Honed Marble floors on my house. After the installation, they started with the clean up to remove the grout and (here is were my wife keep remembering me every single day)one of them told me to ad a little bit of Sulfuric Acid (purchased at Home Depot) along with plenty of water to finish the job. Few days later, we noticed that some areas have some "spots" and we were told AGAIN that the sealer will cover the small spots. I went ahead and purchased 2 5 gallon bottles and I applied to the floors to make them look better. They not honed anymore, because after the 3rd hand of sealer they started to look polished, but you still can see some of the areas with the spots.... My question to you, what would you recomend us to do to keep all the floor uniform and without these spots that are maknig my wife crazy. A home buffing machine and some wax will help us to do the job (assuming doing it once a month for at least 1 year??) Second question. We installed 2 weeks ago some black absolute countertops and island (at least everyone called that way, even we learned from you the true about the name and were the only BA come from) and we don't know how really clean it (we were told water and paper towel)and keep it shine it the way it is now but without the finger/dishes and hand spots. Anyway Black is really hard to keep it clean every day. Once again Thanks in advance and please HELP US !!!!!! Tante Grazie Marisol & Chris Gasulla Windermere Fl

 

Dear Marisol & Chris:

I really don't know where to start!...

If you can prove that “one of them” told you to use acid (no matter which) to clean marble, you can have them pay for the damage. The acid actually corroded the surface of the stone and the damages look like water spots. Any acid does that to marble and any other calcareous and dolomitic rocks.

Crown Cleaning Supply just so happen to be one of my customers (I was at their facility in Orlando a short month ago to teach a 3-day class on stone restoration), so I called them up to find out what that sealer is all about. It turns out to be a topical for high-traffic commercial polished floors, which is certainly not the right product for residential, especially on a hone-finished marble floor.

Bottom line, this is the scoop:

1. First, you have to thoroughly strip that sealer. Crown sells the stripper, but you will need to rent a professional floor machine with a black nylon pad to do the stripping.
2. After that, you will need to hire a reputable stone restoration contractor in your area to re-hone your floor using a good-quality honing powder. You can ask Crown to give you the phone number of a certain Ana. I trained her and she's very, very good. (If I were you I would let her do the stripping, too.)

Like I said before, if you can prove that the installer told you to use acid, you can have them pay for the stone restoration contractor's services.

Once everything is said and done and you finally have a decent hone-finished marble floor, you may want to consider having a good-quality impregnating sealer like MB-4 applied to floor in the kitchen (Do NOT do it yourself!! :-)). Other than that, and taking care of your floor with a good-quality stone floor cleaner like MB-1, all you will have to do is… enjoy it!!

As for the routine cleaning of your polished black “granite” countertop, my recommendation is MB-5 and, occasionally, MB-13 to keep finger marks at bay.

 

May I ask you now to please read and e-sign our Statement of Purpose at: http://www.marblecleaning.org/purpose.htm?   :-)

Ciao and good luck,

Mauri z io Bertoli

 

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