Dealing With a Very Dirty Travertine Kitchen Floor

I recently completed quite a substantial cleaning job at a house in the small, historic market town of Oundle, Northamptonshire. My client had a badly stained Travertine tiled floor that ran throughout her hallway, kitchen, utility area, and toilet.

Travertine is a fantastic choice for tiled floors because it has distinct features which no other stone can offer. It’s not surprising, then, that is popularly used for both residential and commercial flooring. In this case however the appearance of the tiles had been further spoiled by dozens of holes, and my client had attempted to remedy this problem by filling some of the holes with concrete. This had left the floor looking inconsistent and certainly worse for wear.

Cleaning a stained Travertine tiled floor

On day one, my first job was to address the holes marked the tiled surface. I filled the unsealed holes with matching filler, before re-colouring the concrete that had been previously used as a makeshift sealer, thus creating greater consistency in the appearance of the floor.

Following this, I made a strong dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean, which is a high alkaline cleaner which is safe to use on stone, in order to tackle the bad staining on the tiles and grout lines. Once applied to the floor, the solution was left to dwell for a short period of time. By allowing the solution to sit like this, the cleaner is able to seep into the stone, get underneath the dirt and stains, and lift them to the surface. Pro-Clean is highly effective at treating stained tiles, while common acid-based, household cleaning products can cause further damage over time.

To remove the resulting muck from the surface I used a set of Tile Doctor Burnishing pads applying them individually to each tile in sequence from Coarse to Fine, rinsing the floor in-between each pad and removing the resulting residue using a wet-vac machine. The pads are encrusted with diamonds and are ideal for bringing back the finish of Travertine and did a great job of making the filled holes look part of the original floor.

Sealing a Travertine tiled floor

After leaving the floor to dry overnight, I returned to the house to seal the newly cleaned tiles. I did this using Tile Doctor Colour Grow, a colour intensifying sealer that also provides a durable surface seal and pleasing finish (as you can see from the photographs).

Overall the job took roughly two days of work to complete and my client was extremely pleased with the results and even left the following comment on the Tile Doctor feedback system:

“Phil was reliable and very professional. Written quote provided detailing in exact detail the work to be done and the products to be used. It was a large area that needed to be treated. Arrived on time and got the job done in good time. Certainly recommend Phil”.