The polished surface of several Ivory Travertine tiles installed within six months in the main lobby of a new public library is chipped/pitted. The chips are in veins / occlusions in each instance. The chips were not present at the time of installation. Is this normal and if so, what is the recommended repair procedure. I would also appreciate your advice for scratch removal and regular maintenance; cleaning, polishing, sealing if recommended, etc. Thank you.

 

Dear Michael :

I must assume that by chipped/pitted you mean that some holes have opened up.

Travertine is naturally full of holes and the factory fills them with a cementitious material. Depending on the factory, the grading of the tiles and the quality of the cementitious material used to fill, sometime some of the filler comes off under foot traffic.

The easiest, yet very effective way to refill those holes pretty much permanently is to fill them with color-matching caulking (almond in this case). Squee z e the caulk inside the hole, and using a slightly wet 3” flexible putty-knife blade, push it in deep in until the hole is filled completely and then some (a little mounding). Await 10 seconds or so and then “shave” the excess flush with the surface of the stone using a 3” ra z or blade scraper. Clean the film residue around the hole with a finger wrapped with a piece of damp terry-cloth and you're done. Let it cure for a few hours before walking on it.

About the sealing, polished travertine is too darn dense to take any impregnator (a.k.a. sealer) in. In other words it can't be technically sealed and it will never stain.

As for routine maintenance, considering that's a high-traffic floor, nothing beats MB-8 and its team mate MB-10! Inexpensive to use, easy to apply and to maintain, it will never need stripping if managed right, and it will look so natural that not even a trained eye will ever be able to tell that there's anything sitting on that stone!

The skill requirement is plain decent janitorial and the means are a microfiber mop and a 1500 RPM burnished with a hog-hair burnishing pad. Using MB-1 for routine cleaning is also recommended.

But you'd better start a.s.a.p.: the products I listed for you are for preservation of the original finish. If you let the floor get damaged by foot traffic, those products will work great at preserving the… damage!! L

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