I am looking to have Tumbled red marble squares for a kitchen countertop and backsplash. My kitchen designer says the grout will evenualy get into the food and is poisounous, he HIGHLY advises against it and says , Use a slab for the counter tops and you may use the squares for the backsplash. What is your opinion? Thank you

 

Dear Eli:

This is a good one!... I never heard this one before, but, like the old saying goes, there's always a first time for everything!... :-)

Well, I wouldn't eat it for breakfast, but grout is not poisonous. It's mostly sand and cement, for Pete's sake!

The possibility that it could become loose is only in the case that the installer used a lousy grout (expired) and/or mixed it wrong. An extremely rare occurrence anyway. What some people do, they brush some clear nail polish on top of the grout to make it liquid-proof, easier to clean and eliminate that remote possibility at the same time.

Am I advising you to do that? No. I'm just reporting what I've heard in a few occasions, but I have no direct experience. It does make sense to me, but that is as far as I go.

Talking about Tumble red marble, I encourage you to consider applying a good-quality stone impregnator/color enhancer a week or so after installation (to allow the proper curing of the setting material), trying to make sure that the product is not sensitive to acidic substances, considering that is going to be installed in a kitchen.

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,

Maurizio Bertoli

 

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