Tile, Stone and Grout Care

By Dane Gregory

October 04, 2011

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When dealing with tile, stone and grout sealing procedures, how much sealer is enough to get the job done? It''s a very important question.

Don''t ask the manufacturer. Ask the tile, stone or grout by determining just how porous the material really is.

Place a drop or small puddle of water on the surface and see if the mineral crystals darken, which means the water is being absorbed below the surface.

If the area tested is dark, check the angle of the puddle to see how high the edges of the drop or puddle are: The higher the edge of the water, the less porous the material. This would be great information to know before you have bid the procedure with the customer.

Just as a more porous wood product accepts more stain, a porous tile, stone or grout material will accept more impregnating sealer to fill the pores — this is important, of course, so that liquid spills have no open spaces to cause any staining.

There are also some materials that will require multiple applications of impregnating sealer product. As a professional, we must keep applying sealer to the material, always following label directions, until the material will not accept any more of the product.

When that happens, the sealer will quickly bead up on the surface, and absolutely no penetration will occur. Those beads indicate the pores of the tile, stone or grout are completely filled.

Completely follow the manufacturer''s directions for application, using equipment designed to apply the product without picking the product up during the application process. No mops, rags, sponges or towels should be used for application because they have a tendency to begin picking up the product as it is being applied.

Once treated with impregnating sealers, allow the application to penetrate for a number of minutes. How many minutes the impregnating sealer will take to fully penetrate will be determined by how porous the surface is.

Wipe up the impregnating sealer before it dries on the surface. This helps to eliminate a sealer haze after applying.

After-care procedures are important to the protected surface. Only use a neutral cleaning product for any routine or periodic maintenance procedures to ensure that the surface tension differential that was created with adding the impregnating sealer is kept at a high level.

Any detergent, even if considered mild by the customer, that is not pH neutral can cause damage to the impregnating sealer, causing potential liquid penetration, which can result in a stain.

Stains caused by some liquids absorbing into a hard surface flooring product can be very difficult to remove and make a professional stone care technician look bad in the eyes of our customers.

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Dane Gregory is the commercial sales manager for Bridgewater Corporation, which owns Interlink Supply. He works with commercial cleaners to help them build their businesses by adding services without a lot of additional cost. He also helps them with technical aspects of cleaning carpet, tile and grout and stone surfaces. He instructs classes for each floor surface as well as the Commercial Cleaning Initiative, which covers all of these floor surfaces.