Quarry Tiles Archives - Leicestershire Tile Doctor

Restoring an Edwardian Quarry Tiled Bathroom Floor in Braunstone

This is a job I recently completed in the small town of Braunstone, which lies just outside the city boundaries of Leicester, Leicestershire. My client wanted a restorative cleaning and sealing service for their very old Quarry tiled bathroom floor, which dates back to the Edwardian period. The floor was suffering from paint and adhesive staining, and was now in dire need of a thorough clean more generally along with a fresh seal to protect it from further damage.

Quarry Tiled Floor Before Restorative Cleaning and Sealing Braunstone

Cleaning an Edwardian Quarry tiled floor

I treated the floor in the first instance Tile Doctor Remove & Go which is a powerful stripper that breaks down old sealers remaining on the floor, as well as inherent paint and adhesive contamination. Remove & Go also contains cleaning properties which allows it to draw out ingrained dirt from the stone, lifting it to the surface. The product was applied to the floor and allowed to dwell for approximately thirty minutes prior to agitation with a hand-held rotary polisher fitted with a small black stripping pad.

The resulting slurry was promptly removed using a wet vacuum machine and our specialist Tile Doctor Acid Gel was then applied to the floor. Acid Gel is a blend of phosphoric and hydrochloric acids in gel form, and is specially formulated to treat grout haze and efflorescence on both wall and floor tiles.

Readers should be aware that this product is not suitable for use on acid-sensitive stone tiles such as Marble, Limestone and Travertine as it can potentially cause severe etching. In this case Acid Gel was left to dwell for ten minutes prior to agitation. This was effective in removing the white efflorescence salt staining that was present in several concentrated areas. Once again, the resulting slurry was vacuumed away, and the entire floor was rinsed with clean water.

Sealing an Edwardian Quarry tiled floor

The floor was left to dry for roughly twenty four hours before I returned to seal the floor. My choice of sealer in this case was Tile Doctor Colour Grow, a colour enhancing, impregnating sealer. The sealer will help to protect the tiles from soil ingress, and both water and oil based spills.

Quarry Tiled Floor After Restorative Cleaning and Sealing Braunstone

As you can see from the ‘Before’ and ‘After’ photographs, a marked difference was made to the appearance of this Quarry tiled floor. A professional and carefully thought out approach was taken to tackling the innate problems, particularly relating to efflorescence and paint and adhesive staining, and my client was extremely pleased with the results.

Restoring the appearance of Edwardian Quarry tiled bathroom floor in Leicestershire

Restoring an Edwardian Quarry Tiled Bathroom Floor in Braunstone Read More »

Efflorescence Removed From Old Quarry Tiles in Leicester

Efflorescence occurs when water rises up through the floor leaving salt deposits on the surface of the tile as it evaporates and can be a problem on old floors where there is no damp proof course. The photographs below of an old Quarry tiled floor at a house in Leicester are a great example of this, fortunately there is a solution and I’ll walk you through this in the story below.

Efflorescence on old Quarry tiles in Leicester

Removing Efflorescence from Quarry Tiles

The first step was to give the tiles and grout a good clean and then strip the floor of any remaining sealer for which I used a dilution of Tile Doctor Remove and Go which was applied to the floor and left to soak in for ten minutes before being scrubbed in with a rotary machine fitted with a black scrubbing pad. The now soiled solution was then removed using a wet vacuum and the floor rinsed with water.

To remove the efflorescence you need to acid wash the floor for which we use Grout Clean-Up which as its name suggests is normally reserved for removing grout smears from tiles however it’s also useful for removing mineral deposits such as the salts from efflorescence and even rust stains. The acid is scrubbed onto the floor just long enough for it to do its job and then quickly removed and the floor given a thorough wash with water, acids can damage a tiled floor if left on for too long so you do need to be careful.

Efflorescence removed from old Quarry tiles in Leicester

Sealing Quarry Tiles

Given there was no DPC the floor was left to dry off for a few days and when we returned it was sealed with several coats of Tile Doctor Colour Grow which gives the matt finish the customer wanted. Colour Grow is a penetrating sealer that provides stain protection by soaking deep into the pores of the Quarry tile and preventing dirt from becoming ingrained there, it also does a good job of enhancing the natural colour of the tile.