Heaters Portable

Granite is and has been for some time the material of choice as a worktop in kitchens and is now being used more and more in domestic kitchens as flooring also. The reason for this is that it is the hardest of all the natural stones and consequently is very hard wearing. It is also relatively resistant to acids and alkalis unlike marble and limestone.

Although it is a very hard material it can still be scratched by harder materials and one common material that this applies to is quartz. Quartz is sand and makes up quite a large proportion of the dirt on the soles of shoes. As this is walked over the granite surface it gets moved about by the action of walking and makes the smallest of scratches to the granite surface. This scratching effect will not be so noticeable as it it would be on marble or limestone but never the less there will still be a level of scratching. The effects of this can be minimized as on all natural stone floors by following a good maintenance programme. This would consist of dust mopping the granite at least once per day to remove this dusty dirt and once per week washing with stone soap and wet vacuuming this up to prevent any water staining. The benefit of the stone soap is that it constantly reseals the floor and also acts as a colour enhancer. This is a good regime for all stone floors, marble, limestone or granite.

At frequent intervals which depends upon the number of people walking over the floor the granite should be treated with a crystallising chemical and then buffed using a high speed buffer. The intervals between these treatments could be as short as one week in a very busy commercial environment but in a domestic setting where shoes are probably not worn it could be a yearly event. This process helps to remove the majority of these small invisible scratches and brings back the shine. The next process should be carried out every 2 – 5 years in the home and every 6 months in commercial buildings. In this process a more abrasive chemical is used along with a slow buffer fitted with steel wool pads. This takes much longer but the effect is to remove all scratches and restore the granite floor to its almost mirror like, brilliant shiny surface.

If this maintenance programme is followed then this brilliant shine that granite flooring can produce will last you a lifetime with minimum costs.

If the floor becomes neglected and is not cleaned correctly then it will slowly become dull and the scratching will build up enhancing the dull effect. If this was a marble floor then the scratching would be greater and could be removed and the shine restored by using diamond grinders on a slow speed buffing machine. However successful re-grinding of granite cannot be achieved. It can be re-ground using the diamond technique and made shiny but quite often it causes a colour change in the granite which is obviously not acceptable to the customer.

On a marble or limestone floor which needs to be reground it might take about 30 minutes to restore the shine to a particular area. A granite floor would take between 3 to 4 hours to shine an equivalent area and use up at least 3 times the number of diamonds. it should therefore be very evident why this is not a very cost effective procedure.

All natural stone is obtained by quarrying before being dispatched to the processing plants where it is cut and polished or treated as required. To polish the stones they are clamped in place and heavy duty grinders are then employed. In the case of marble and limestone this polishing process takes about 40 minutes. To grind and polish granite requires anything up to 18 hours of constant grinding. There is no way that this process can be replicated satisfactorily once the granite has been laid as a floor!

If you instigate a good maintenance programme along the lines outlined above then you will never be confronted with this problem and the costs will be minimal by comparison. Not only that you will have a floor that looks like a mirror all of the time! Should you happen to inherit a bad granite floor then even if a stone polisher offers to regrind decline and have it recrystallized instead. The effects will be equivalent at a much lower cost.

David Smith operates a cleaning services company in the UK which provides amongst other services one for marble polishing and the care and maintenance of all natural stone features.