The photographs below are from a house in Lymington where the Travertine Tiled floor had become dull and were now in need of a re-polish. It’s a fact that depending on the amount of foot traffic they receive all polished stone floors will lose their shine over time and require a re-polish.
Cleaning Travertine Floor Tiles
To get the shine back on the floor we use a process called burnishing which is done using a set of four diamond encrusted pads, each one has a different grade from coarse through to super fine.
We gave the floor a quick sweep and wash down first to ensure any surface grit and other detritus was removed and then stated the burnishing process with the coarse pad fitted to a rotary machine with a little water. The burnishing pads are very good at removing dirt and sealers from hard stone including Marble; the surface water and loose dirt was removed used a wet Vacuum. And the process was repeated using the Medium and Fine pads. Before moving onto the superfine polishing pad we gave the grout a good scrub using Tile Doctor Pro-Clean worked in using a stiff grout brush. The final Super Fine polishing pad was then applied and the floor given another wash down to ensure any dirt had been removed, the water being extracted from the floor using the wet vacuum.
Sealing Travertine Floor Tiles
The floor was still quite wet at this point so rather than sealing the floor we left it to dry naturally and came back the next day to seal it. It’s important the floor is dry before sealing so we test first using a damp meter in several locations to be sure. Once we were happy the floor was dry we proceeded to seal the Travertine tiles using two coats of Tile Doctor Ultra Seal which is a natural look sealer that doesn’t alter the look of the tiles but provides the necessary surface protection by filling the pores in the tile so dirt cannot penetrate.
Source: Residential and Commercial Stone, Tile and Grout Cleaning Services in Hampshire
Polished Travertine does look great but if your after a low maintenance floor you need to install Porcelain.