Travertine Polishing & Restoration!

Travertine is one of the most varied and beautiful stones

Each piece unique from the other, all varied and universally beautiful.   We’ll treat that floor with the respect its due.

Our
Projects

Polish and restore your  Travertine beyond its original beauty.

Travertine is one of the most beautiful stone floors available, yet perplexing for the inexperienced in figuring out proper care.

While most stone floors are naturally hard, with their own shine, Travertine is naturally filled with holes and bubbles, where water once ran through the stone, or carbon monoxide once escaped the stone.  These holes and bubbles help grade the quality of the stone and add to its beauty and character.  When used in flooring, sometimes the holes are filled in with epoxies, sometimes they are left open.  Either way, there are sincere cleaning challenges.  If water is meant to run through the stone, then wet washing the stone could lead to simply pushing dirt deeper into the stone.  If the holes and bubbles have been filled in, then there are inconsistencies in the hardness of the surface, and a single approach to cleaning and polishing Travertine may not be the best solution.

That Travertine is a most unique and beautiful stone for flooring is beyond questions.  The natural variances in the stone create endless unique and rich patterns.  Care of the floor should be put in the hands of experts, The Floor Cleaning Experts.

Some Stats

“Everyone’s stone floor is as unique as the person that chose the floor in the first place.  Your floors, counters, walls, deserve someone’s attention that has “been there” and “done that”.  We’ll treat each floor with the respect it deserves, especially when it comes to clean up, and protecting the environment that the stone lives in.  With the investment you have in your floors, you’d never settle for someone’s first time out, and we would never give you anything but our best.

Terrazzo Floors Restored and counting

Years In Business and counting

Generations of Floor Cleaners, and hoping

Who Is Floor Cleaning Experts

You just might get a surprise opera sample when getting your stone floors refinished.

We run a magnificent team of highly qualified stone professionals.   Each person that is in your office, or home, has been trained by Tom Workman, a third generation Floor Cleaning Expert.

In Tom’s spare time, Tom is an active participant in local theater, and local opera, as well as finding time to relax with a raucous weekend band of fun-loving rag tag collection of misfits!  Life is not all work – but your floors – that’s serious business.

Tom Workman

President
Third Generation Floor Cleaning Expert

Ripley

Company Mascot

OperMan Tampa

Tom’s Alter Ego
OperaMan Tampa

We Love Your Floors

We will treat them like our own, just like we have for 3 generations.

Reach Us

We can’t wait to hear about your Travertine Project!   Reach out to us, and we will be back to you promptly and professionally.

2324 Meadow Drive
St. Petersburg, FL 333333
(727) 399-8803
[email protected]

Travertine Floor Polishing retest

Travertine floor polishing requires different expertise than polishing a marble floor.

While marble is limestone that changed under extreme heat and pressure and is very hard, travertine is a soft sedimentary stone formed in mineral springs.  The stone has large pores and fissures where water used to run through the stone. These may be filled or unfilled depending on the style of the travertine floor.   Most are filled with either grout or an epoxy filler. This creates the most visible differences between a travertine floor and a marble floor.   These fill areas can look different than the natural stone and may be distantly visible after polishing.  This is the nature of this stone and should be expected.

To restore an even consistent luster back to the floor, the travertine needs to be cleaned and polished with a travertine polishing compound. Travertine is a soft stone that responds very well to polishing powders.  Small scratches and light etches can be removed from a travertine tile using oxalic acid or Italian 5X powder polish. Medium or heavy scratches would require honing before polishing.

Most polishing powders or pastes use a combination of oxalic acid and aluminum oxide to clean and polish by melting the edges from the small honing scratches on the floor. Oxalic acid is also a very effective grout cleaner. Before we start the travertine floor polishing we evaluate the surroundings for any delicate areas. Delicate areas are protected with a combination of delicate blue tape, plastic wrap, and duct tape.

Very sensitive areas get a layer of delicate surface blue tape covered by duct tape to provide abrasion protection and water resistance. By using Tampico polishing brushes we keep any abrasive edges away from the wall. It just gets brushed with soft brushes. This allows us to get right to the edge safely. After the area is properly protected, we apply the travertine polishing paste to the floor and work it into a slurry with a 175rpm polishing machine with a Tampico polishing brush.

This works the dirt out of the travertine tile and grout and smoothes the surface to restore the luster. A travertine floor can be burned by being too aggressive with the polishing paste. It takes a skilled craftsman to know when enough is enough. The travertine polishing paste needs to be neutralized with an ammonia and water solution. This keeps the oxalic acid from working too long and burning the shine back off the floor.

The floor is mopped repeatedly to remove all the polishing paste and dirt from the floor before sealing. The floor is sealed with a penetrating sealer that soaks into the stone and changes the chemistry so that water doesn’t soak into the stone. This helps keep the stone clean and protects it from stains soaking into the stone.

Sealing doesn’t provide protection from acid etching. Acids dissolve some travertine floors and leave marks on the surface that need to be polished away. Always use care when using acids or acidic foods around a stone floor. Travertine floors can develop open pores or holes as it ages. These are from the fissures in the stone that were filled and broken down. Depending on the size of the holes they can be filled with either an un-sanded grout or an epoxy. Grout fills are used on small holes and are much cheaper than epoxy patches. Large holes get filled with a color-matched epoxy that fills the hole and then gets ground flush with the stone.

After powder polishing, cleaning, patching, and sealing the floor we remove our protective coverings and clean the floor and surrounding areas of any polishing residues and wipe down the baseboards and trim work. The floors are repeatedly dry mopped with microfiber mops before being crystallized. The last step is to go over the floor with a 175rpm polishing machine with a steel wool pad to spray buff the travertine floor with a crystallizer. The crystallizer causes the stone to get harder and closes up the pores of the travertine. This gives the floor more shine and makes it easier to clean. After you have had your travertine polished we recommend you use a microfiber mop system to keep it clean. Microfiber cleaning technology works in two ways. Used dry they create a natural static cling that holds dirt and hair in the cloth. When used wet the microfibers cut and lift grease and oils using their minute triangular-shaped fibers.

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