granite countertop

Have 2 year old granite tops which rarely shine as I think they should and are due for sealing. Cannot find a professional to polish them - they are rare and all too busy. Ready to try it myself with a sander and your products. Can you adivse me?? Thanks

 

Dear Nancy:

There are no good reasons why a granite or mercantile granite should not still have its original factory polish after two years (or twenty years) of use (and even abuse).

Now, if your countertops were never as shiny as you thought they should have been in relation to other different stones you may have seen, it is probably due to the fact that your particular granite or “granite” maybe is not a big shiner, and that's all you can expect from that particular stone.

If instead you noticed some sort of loss of sheen over the past two years, I highly doubt that it will need any polishing; or any sealing, for that matter – assuming that you granite or “granite” could be technically sealed to begin with.

In the vast majority of the instances, when people approach me indicating that their granite or “granite” countertop is not as shiny as it used to be, it turns out that it's just plain dirty. I'm not automatically implying that's your case, mind you, but considering the overwhelming statistics in my possession that point in that direction, it would be foolish not to consider the possibility.

What happens all too many times is that fabricators are literally obsessed with sealing (or pretending to seal – depending on the stone) all the stones they process, but then they “forget” to supply their customers with the right intelligence and products for the daily care for their stones, which, as it should be pretty intuitive, is vastly more important that the sealing (if and when possible or advisable). So they tell their customers to use stuff like water and dish soap to “clean” their countertops, or other nonsense like that. As the soap film accumulates together with the soil that it was not able to clean off the surface of the stone, the granite or “granite” seems to become dull and the general perception is that it will need re-polishing. The fact is that under the film of soil the surface of the stone is still totally unscathed and as shiny as it was the very day it was installed.

So, Nancy , forget the sander! (Face polishing granite on location is an extremely difficult craft that only a do z en or so contractors throughout the entire country can master.)

Give it a try with MB-3 for heavy-duty cleaning and then start using MB-5 and MB-13 for routine care. 

And if after that your countertop is still not shiny as you think it should be compared to other different “granites”, just learn how to live with it: that's most likely the nature of the stone you chose.

 

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

Ciao and good luck,

Mauri z io Bertoli

 

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