travertine in kitchen

I just bought crosscut, filled and honed travertine for my kitchen floor. Is it a good idea or should I change to marble instead for durability and maintenance? If I can keep the travertine, what sealer and waterproofing should the installer use before and after installation? How often do I need to reseal after each application? thanks

 

Dear Shawn:

Unless the marble that you may have in mind is hone-finished itself, travertine is a better choice.

Don't worry too much about the sealing thing; travertine is much denser than what you may have heard around! One application of a good-quality impregnating sealer like MB-4 a week or two after the installation (to allow for proper curing of the setting material), is all you will ever need for the next 10 years or so! ( http://www.mbstonecare.com)

Focus on getting the right intelligence about the routine maintenance, which is vastly more important than the sealing but 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 it from your dealer or installer. Don't become another statistic! By logging into the Helpful Hints section of our website at: http://www.marblecleaning.org/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.marblecleaning.org/literature.htm.  

And remember, every single penny of the cost of the literature will be used to support this site and its cause: your cause.

While you are in the “Helpful Hints” section, do spend some time reading all of the interesting FREE articles you'll find in there!

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Thank you  

Ciao and good luck,

Mauri z io Bertoli

 

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