Hardfloor Grinding

The nice, shining surface that we typically imagine when thinking of a stone floor is achieved by grinding the material with abrasives. The process is very similar to wood sanding and involves grinding the floor down with diamond abrasive pads. Successively finer pads are used to bringing out a mirror like shine. Why different grit sizes? The finer grit addresses the scratches left from the coarser abrasive materials, but creates finer marks. Finally, the scratch marks left by the finest abrasive are so tiny, that they are virtually invisible to the naked eye. The surface gloss and shine is result of such a fine abrading, that the material develops optical reflectivity. Proper grinding makes the stone floor look monolithic, i.e. as if there was just a single stone block.
So, are there any disadvantages to stone grinding? Well, this may prove to be a lengthy, pricey process, especially with hard stones. Second, grinding can be rather dirty, since it involves large amounts of water and thus produces quite a lot of “slush” that needs to be cleaned. Finally, all adjacent areas need to be properly protected so as to prevent water damage to carpets, other floors, boards, skirting, furniture etc.

Honing

Honing is actually lighter grinding that is less aggressive than proper grinding and is usually done with finer abrasives, i.e. grinding is rubbing the surface using any grit of 60 or below, while honing starts with grit 120 and progresses upwards to 600 or 800 before the surface gets polished. Honing doesn’t address uneven tiles, called lippage, but it will make the surface smoother and remove minor scratches. Depending on the floor condition, you may need to have your floor ground then honed or just the latter.

Polishing

Depending on the current condition of your floor, we will first grind the surface, hone it before we get down to polishing. How is polishing different from grinding and honing? While the latter two are performed using diamond and/or silicon carbide abrasives, polishing involves surface treatment using a buffing machine equipped with powdered abrasives that contain ultrafine oxide (aluminum or tin) crystals. This is a good regular maintenance choice.

Coating

Sometimes different types of coatings like stone wax or polyurethane-based sealers can be used. While our experience shows that this may be the best option in certain cases, proper coating has to be done by a skilled specialist who knows exactly what to do. Normally, we wouldn’t recommend stone floor coating, since the seal prevent the stone from being able to properly “breathe” which typically leads to yellowing of light-colored stones, not to mention the sealant removers that have to be used to strip off the sealant can cause severe damage to the stone. Coating is more of a quick fix that tends to be more of a problem than a solution and only leads to troubles in a long run. Although it may be a good method in certain cases if skillfully done depending on the type and current condition of your floor, we would advise extreme caution.

Treating floors with sealers and impregnators might be a good idea to prevent the stone from getting easily stained. Repairing stained areas can be pricey and is not always possible, leaving you with just one option – to have floor blocks replaces. Impregnators protect the stone by penetrating deep into it and give the surface repellency properties. Since the agent gets deep into the stone, it doesn’t prevent it from breathing and therefore, yellowing is unlikely with lighter floors, when properly doneEven non-aggressive substances will ultimately cause damage and get through the impregnator is left long enough. Still, most liquids will eventually evaporate before damaging properly impregnated stone, but keep in mind that no impregnator offers ultimate protection against staining, so you better clean the floor as soon as you can in case of spillage of liquids.

Which Method Should I Go For?

Well, that depends on the floor type and its current condition. In the case of marble and limestone, diamond abrasives prior to restoration might be the best choice if there are scratches that need to be addressed.

Regular, Daily Maintenance

The loss of shine on stone surfaces is typically caused by fine particles of dirt and dust that being abrasive, will scratch the floor when people walk on it. removing them is the best way to keep that to a minimum, meaning the better the maintenance, the less frequently the floor will have to be restored. You may use a soft, damp cotton mop, just keep in mind two things:

• Never to use soaking wet clothes
• Make sure you use pH neutral cleaning agents, especially with marble and liemstone