Looking after finished natural stone is an issue I receive questions about all the time from clients who want to ensure there materials continue to look the same way as they do when there first installed, in a lot of cases this is not possible as stone naturally ages and weathers. Outlined below are the three most important things to consider for all natural stone types in both interior and exterior applications. This is an introductory article, I will expand and go into further detail in future posts –
- Seal & Re-seal – Firstly make sure that either your supplier, fixer or you are sealing the material directly after installation. Take some advice to make sure you are using the correct type of sealer for the material and environment, water based or solvent, colour enhancing, natural, anti slip etc there are many options in the market.
Following this you must make sure you reseal the material on a regular basis, how regular will depend on the material itself and how heavily the area is used. Consider once every 6 months testing the material by putting a small blob of water on the surface and watching to see if it keeps it shape and stays on the surface or slowly starts to spread out and get absorbed into the material. In most circumstances to reseal the material once every 12 months is enough and it can be a very fast and easy job.
- Cleaning liquid – There are many cleaning solutions in your local supermarket listed as being special cleaning products for natural stone. It doesn’t matter if you use these or use another cleaning product, the most important thing is that whatever you use it is PH neutral. If a liquid is heavily acidic or alkaline it is possible it can damage your stone. As long as it is PH neutral then its absolutely fine to use to clean natural stone.
- Cleaning tool – This one is pretty obvious but ive seen this mistake made so many times – Do not use an abrasive cleaning instrument. Use a soft cloth not a scourer, a soft mop or soft broom with plastic bristles, no abrasive cleaning instruments will mean no hairline scratches on the surface of your material.
