Limestone and Travertine are both formed by the settling of plants, sea shells, sand, animals and mud on the sea beds. You see fossils on both of these stone. Usually Travertine has got holes but sometimes it can be filled with an epoxy resin. At this point, it can be difficult to distinguish the finished travertine product from limestone.
Limestone (usually beige) is suitable for bathrooms, fireplaces, counters and floors.
Limestone cleaning, grinding and polishing before and after pictures:
Travertine is generally used for floors, walls, countertops and for outside as cladding and pavement. Unfilled travertine is also quite beautiful, and is often seen as exterior surfaces of buildings.
What happens during our Limestone / Travertine cleaning process?
1. We inspect your floor: this is to identify any limitations like stain removal, loss of loose grout surrounding surfaces sensitive to cleaning solutions and any other areas that needs consideration before the cleaning starts
2. We protect your walls and furniture: this is to limit overspray on to sensitive areas during the cleaning process. Please note no guarantee can be made that materials that is extremely sensitive to moisture might not show some form of exposure to our cleaning solutions – please read “Limitations to having your tile and stone cleaned”
3. Dry soil removal: we will remove any dry soil and dirt before any water based cleaning takes place
4. Apply cleaning solution to the floor/wall: this can be by means of sprayer or directly from a container with pre-mixed cleaning solutions
5. Agitation: this is done by means of a rotary cleaning machine or by hand depending on the areas to be cleaned.
6. Rinse: Slurry (Dirt from the floor and cleaning solution mixed together) with our pressurised cleaning equipment. This step allows us to clean areas of your wall or floor that is not reachable with any other form of cleaning (scrubbing)
Sometimes we have to repeat the cleaning process as described above to ensure optimum results.
8. Drying: After the cleaning process has been completed, we will clean up and dry any areas. Travertine and Limestone has a high porosity and therefore can take up to 12 hours to thoroughly dry.
9. Polishing:Â to make your Limestone and Travertine surfaces smooth and reflective, we use diamond encrusted rotary pads. This consists of a three step process that starts with grinding the surface of the stone with a special course diamond encrusted rotary pad. The second step for cleaning Limestone / Travertine is to hone the surface of the stone with a finer diamond encrusted pad. This step makes the surface of the stone very smooth but only gives the stone a low sheen. The final step in Limestone / Travertine cleaning is to polish the surface of the stone with fine diamond encrusted pad to achieve the desired polished finish.
Please note that we can also offer a honed finish on the Travertine and Limestone floor.
10. Impregnation: Application of a top quality impregnator to limestone and Travertine is crucial as it greatly reduce the porosity of the stone. The impregantor penetrates below the surface of the stone and grout and act as a repellent for any liquid based spills. This allow the Limestone and Travertine to breath.
