Cleaning Slate Flooring
12 April
2010- A slate floor can make the outdoors as well as home interiors
beautiful. Slate, being a natural stone grants many advantages main being
its durability. However, caring for slate flooring might require different
techniques than other tile floor cleaning and caring. Here are some tips for
cleaning slate floor as well as caring for slate floors through
troubleshooting certain common problems faced by them.
General Caring and Cleaning Slate Floor
Given the porous nature of
slate stone, slate flooring should be sealed with a quality stone floor
sealer. The floor sealers penetrate the outer surface of the slate, and
protect the slate flooring from soil, scratches, and grease. For general
cleaning of slate flooring, it should be washed and rinsed well with a
detergent and water solution. Alkali cleaners generally do not harm slate
floors. However, strong solutions for cleaning should be avoided. If extra
protection and shine is required for slate flooring, a water-based,
self-polishing wax may be applied over a clean, dry, and sealed slate floor.
Slight damp mopping can be done on a waxed floor at an interval of 7-10
days. This is enough to keep the
slate flooring clean. Washing with
detergent is needed only once in a while.
Cleaning Grout Lines from Slate Flooring
The white deposits of
salts seeping through the grout joints or from the mortar can be cleaned
with the help of grout cleaner tools that are a fine blade embedded in a
plastic housing. Chisels can be used efficiently for cleaning grout lines on
slate flooring. A narrow tipped cold chisel or a blunt wood chisel can be
used for scraping out wide lines. Some people also wash slate floors with
acid to clean off the grout lines. However, this should be avoided if the
lines are not too stubborn and are gone with scraping. If there are grout
lines on black slate floor, washing the floor with a mild solution of
sulfamic acid can be done but after rinsing the floor with acid, it should
also be rinsed with plenty of clean water.
Removing Scratches from Slate Flooring
If a scratch occurs on a
slate tile and if it is natural cleft, the scratch marks can be removed by
oiling the scratch which makes it fall in line with the rest of the natural
cleft. In other cases, a topical sealer can hide the scratches. If one wants
to remove the scratches entirely instead of hiding them, then the slate
floor would have to be resurfaced. However, if the texture of the slate
flooring is uneven then it is not advisable to resurface the floor. It is
better to hide the scratches with sealing. In fact, many slates are very
soft that need to be sealed every three months or so.
Cleaning Gray Slate Floor with Rough Finish
Rough finish of a gray
slate floor might catch fibers of the mop when cleaning slate floor. For
solving this problem, one should go for deep cleaning slate floor in order
to remove all dirt and grime from it. After that, a high-quality acrylic
floor sealer should be applied in multiple coats, if required. This will
make slate floor cleaning much easier.
Have some more tips on
How
to Clean Slate Stone Tiles? - Slate Care Tips