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Marble floors are beautiful and BUT DO require special attention. Regular floor and household cleaners can damage your floors leaving them dull or stained requiring professional attention. (FACT: 20% of residential stone restoration calls are associated with improper cleaner usage and damage).
Problems associated with cleaning marble floors can be divided into product and process errors. Bleach and floor cleaners containing micro waxes can leave behind sticky residues which cause your floors to get dirty quicker, as the dirt now sticks to the floor, versus laying on the floor. This means there is less transfer or motion and more collection.
The most common process error centers around mopping. The common belief is that one has to get the floor wet, but this only seeks in dissolving dirt on top of the floor and tile and transferring it to the lowest point, your grout lines, where it settles to form mud and eventually a hard dirt colored new surface. A mop should be moist, but not wet. In effect you want to wring the mop out BEFORE putting it on the floor. This way the dirt sticks to the mop. When you return the mop to your bucket the excess water dissolves the dirt removing it from your mop (as long as your mop water is relatively clean).
SUGGESTION 1: Use a cleaner that is designed to emulsify dirts to more easily allow oils, acids in addition to dirt particulars to be carried by the water solution. Your best cleaner will then allow the dirt to settle to the bottom of your mop bucket, keeping your water as cleaner longer reducing the incidence of re-transferring to the floor. MARBLELIFE® Cleaners are designed to do just this. Why? Because we want our service providers to be able to get on and off floors as quickly as possible while delivering a beautiful result….just like you do.
Returning the mop to the bucket over and over and over again, deposits the mud into the cleaning solution, making the water muddy until you no longer have a clean solution.
SUGGESTION 2: Glue a quarter to the bottom of your mop bucket. When you can no longer see the quarter you know its time to change the water. When to change the water is one of the more frequent questions we hear asked by home owners and professionals alike.
Regardless, over time your mop head will become one of the dirtiest items in your house. Yuck. Yet we bring it out with the intent to clean. And just think of those germs. There has got to be a better way. Finding a safe and truly effective cleaner can be next to impossible. That’s why those in the know have been trusting MARBLELIFE® for over twenty years.
SUGGESTION 3: Get a second mop head, so you can place one in the laundry from time to time to clean it. This is the easiest way to improve cleanliness. Start with clean tools.
Then look to an effective cleaner that can help the process.
Natural stone such as marble, is porous. In fact, it is this very fact that we credit for effectively purifying spring water that soaks through ground and stone to arriving in the natural aquifers spring water originates from. This process however while excellent at removing impurities over several hundred feet of stone depth, sees the greatest concentration at the surface where the water would be carrying its maximum level on impurities. Similar to the surface of your floor. As such, we want a cleaner that can flush dirt from the immediate surface of our porous marble. MARBLELIFE® Marble & Travertine Cleaner in our ready-to-use-spray bottle and MARBLELIFE® Marble & Travertine Floor Cleaner Concentrate penetrate deep into your marble, encapsulating the oils and dirt trapped in these small pores and allowing them to be lifted out and off your floor and counter-tops. Couple this with a beautiful streak free shine and you have an effectively cleaned surface and home.
A better spin on traditional mopping is using two rinse buckets. This allows the dirty water to be deposited in the waste bucket and the other bucket with clean water to help rinse out and return with a cleaner mop. This can also reduce the number of times one has to stop and change water.
SUGGESTION 4: If you are ready to change your process, consider purchasing a bag on inexpensive microfiber towels. Wrap a broom or square mop with the microfiber towel. Spray the floor with your MARBLELIFE® Marble & Travertine Spray Cleaner and wipe up with the microfiber towers. This has several advantages. Just as marble pores separate water from its impurities as it travels through it. Microfiber towels make use of their large surface area to trap and hold onto those impurities and dirt. The towel will release these material when you either wash them (no bucket) or rinse them (bucket). With a couple of towels one can eliminate the need to haul water and dump muddy water all together in exchange for a laundry load of microfiber towels which can be stuffed into a netted bag (without folding) for next use. No more dirty, smelly, bacteria growing mops, no more hauling water, no more transfer of dirt from floor-to mop-to bucket-back-to-mop-back-to-floor. Instead dirt goes from floor to mop to laundry for cleaning. This will also keep your grout lines cleaner longer, as most people do not realize that it is our archaic cleaning methods that actually transfer most of the dirt into the grout lines, during the cleaning process.
To top it off, one can buff dry with a dry microfiber towel, and eliminate having to wait for the floor to dry, avoiding footprints and potential slip and fall conditions.
For removing light etches (those white spots and rings that look like they are gone but come back after cleaning when the surface dries), MARBLELIFE® Marble Polish is an absolute lifesaver. Used as directed it can remove those pesky re-occurring white spots for marble once and for all. If you have heavy etching (white marks that are clearly evident even when wet) call your local MARBLELIFE® service professional. Heavy etches require the surface to be honed and polished before one can achieve that clean uniform beautiful appearance once again. MARBLELIFE® Marble & Travertine Spray Cleaner is so effective in capturing dirt and acid, that it is a required final step following use of the MARBLELIFE® Marble Polish in order to neutralize the polishing product once completed.
If your marble has large etched areas, it’s wise to contact a MARBLELIFE® service professional before attempting to address this yourself. For small etches, follow the instructions on the bottle to restore your damaged marble back to its original shine. For more on removing etches watch the video for Marble vanities and counter table tops.
MARBLELIFE® Stone Sealer is a valuable safeguard against disappointing and costly stains. For most floor applications it’s recommended to have a professional apply a sealer for you to assure that beautiful and even coverage and strong application. However for those Do-It-Yourselfers, there is no better solution than MARBLELIFE® stone sealer. Simply apply, wait 5 to 10 minutes and wipe off the excess. When working with any penetrating sealer it is important that all excess sealer be removed from the surface, so that we are leaving only the material that has soaked into the pores, which is what we are seeking to seal. When complete no material should be sitting on the surface of your stone. This is an essential part of your stone maintenance plan, preventing unsightly and embarrassing stain from taking residence as a result of an unplanned spill or accident.
MARBLELIFE®, helping to make your life easier.
To watch this video on youtube go to https://youtu.be/asgrHR8b–E
For more information or to hire a MARBLELIFE® Stone Care Professional visit http://marblelife.com. For professional grade products go to http://marblelifeproducts.com
