Sandstone Tile Cleaning Archives

Sandstone Tile Cleaning

Welcome to my Work History archive where you will find detailed examples of the cleaning and renovation of Sandstone flooring carried out in Dorset

Cleaning and Renovating Sandstone Floors

Sandstone is often used for Kitchen and Hallway flooring, however as with any natural stone it needs to be sealed to protect it and bring out its beauty and colouring. One of the biggest problems we find with stone flooring is with the sealer becoming stripped away prematurely by the continuous use of cleaning agents not designed for this type of surface. Without its protective sealer porous stone quickly becomes ingrained with dirt making it increasingly difficult to clean effectively.

Our method for renovating Sandstone typically involves stripping the floor of any existing sealer/coatings, deep cleaning to extract the dirt and then applying a fresh sealer for which I recommend Tile Doctor Colour Grow as it enhances the natural colours in the stone. If the floor is particularly bad, it’s best to resurface it with coarse milling pads which can remove a thin layer from the surface of the stone.

Below you will find detailed examples of work we have carried out in the past, it should give you some idea of what’s involved and what can be achieved with the right techniques and products.

Sandstone Floor Before and After Cleaning and Sealing

Cleaning and Sealing a Dirty Sandstone Tiled Floor in Dorset

You can see from the photographs how soiled this Sandstone tiled floor was, any sealer had pretty much been worn away and dirt had penetrated into the pores of the sandstone flagstones.

Cleaning a Sandstone Tiled Floor

We cleaned the floor using Tile Doctor Pro-Clean diluted with 10 parts warm water, Pro-Clean has an alkaline formula so it’s safe to use on natural stone, acidic cleaning products can eat away at protective coatings and even dissolve calcareous stone over time. The cleaning agent was worked into the stone surface using a rotary machine fitted with a black scrubbing pad; we also used a stiff hand brush on the grout lines as the machine can struggle here. The soiled solution was rinsed off with clean water which was removed with a wet vacuum which is a great time saver when you need to suck water off a floor. There were a few areas that needed further attention so we repeated the process until we were satisfied, there were one or two areas where stains had penetrated through to the grit in the Sandstone but we had managed to lighten them significantly, we then left for the evening so the floor could dry overnight.

Sealing a Sandstone Tiled Floor

We came back the next day and tested the floor with a damp meter in a few different locations to make sure no dampness remained in the stone. The sandstone was dry so we proceeded to seal the floor with Tile Doctor Seal and Go which gives a nice low sheen finish. Sandstone is fairly porous to it took five coats of sealer in the end, the sealer also reduced the appearance of the stains once it had fully dried and I think you will agree from the photographs there was quite an improvement.