So, how do you clean unsealed travertine?

I laid travertine tile but didn't have the time to seal it...6 months later i'm ready, but it needs to be cleaned thoroughly. How should I do this? Will the polisher be useful at this point? Thanks

 

Dear Tracy:

You have to clarify for me if your travertine tiles are polished or hone-finished. If they're polished, they can't be sealed at all: the amazing surface tension of polished travertine does not allow anything to be absorbed by it, including the impregnator (a.k.a. sealer). If it is hone-finished instead, the sealing is optional: travertine is very hard to stain, and sealers for stone only offer some degree of protection against deep staining – nothing else.

That said, if it is hone-finished and you decide that you must seal it, I really don't think that after 6 months you would have to do any serious cleaning before that. Unless of course there's some grout film residue still sitting on the stone surface. In such case, a heavy-duty alkaline cleaner with chelates in its formula, like MB-3, should be used to eliminate that.

But remember: the issue of what you'll be doing day in and day out to your stone is – like 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 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.

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Ciao and good luck,

Mauri z io Bertoli

 

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