Sealing travertine tiles

[Unregistered]

I need all yours expertise on this issue.
I am in the process of laying travertine in my house (every room except the bedroom). My question is how do I go about sealing the tile and polishing it. What is the proper ways of doing it?
This is my first attempt in using natural stone. As I understand it, natural stone is a different creature that requires special attention.
Please shed some light of wisdom.
Much thanks.
Linh

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[KChurch1]

A honed finish on a travertine floor is going to need less restoration than a polished finish. Floor polishing should be left to a professional restoration person unless a DIY'er wishes to invest 1000's of dollars in training and equipment. There are some sealers available for floors that will add gloss, but they need to be stripped and re-applied on a regular basis... not something I recommend. The use of a good impregnator sealer will help protect your stone and grout against stains. A good neutral stone cleaner will clean the floor if used on a regular basis. Common sense will help protect your floor from common problems. Keep sand and grit off the floor by using a walk-off mat at any entrance and daily sweeping. Acidic products will leave etch marks that need to be honed out, so keep acidic cleaning products (toilet bowl cleaners, acidic tile/grout cleaners, vinegar) away from the travertine. Lemons, limes and other food products are acidic and will etch travertine.

[Maurizio Bertoli]

Dear Linh:
Here we go again with the "sealing cult!" :crazy: :laugh2: (It's not your fault: I'm just pointing an accusing finger to whoever talked to you about the "sealing thing!")
Let me explain to you what you can expect from a sealer for stone. The following is the copy-and-paste answer I gave to an inquirer who sent me an e-mail a while back and that I keep on file. The inquiry was about sealing a travertine (but it could have been polished mable: same diff) wet-bar top, because it was getting stained by all sorts of "water stains," "water rings" and such. You may also want to take a look at the thread below about sealing Jerusalem limestone.

"A sealer for stone (better defined as “impregnator”) is not a topical sealer of sorts that will envelope your stone within an impenetrable cocoon. All sealers for stone are impregnators and, as such, are below-surface products that only deal with the rate of absorbency of the stone by dramatically reducing it. It is obvious that since they have to go below the stone surface, they have to be absorbed by it to begin with. It is also obvious that since none of the stuff will be allowed to cure and stay on the surface, no protection whatsoever to the surface itself can be expected.
Having said that and coming to your travertine, for starters it will not absorb a darn thing, since it’s the densest stone there is available among the calcite-based ones. (Widespread popular misconception has it that travertine is very absorbent. It is not, and it’s a scientific fact, not my opinion.) Therefore the application of an impregnator/sealer to it would only help its makers and its distributors to put their kids through college!
That was the good news. The bad news is the fact that travertine is a calcite-based stone, therefore it readily reacts to acidic spills by etching, which is not staining: it’s rather surface damage, a mark of corrosion, which has nothing to do with the (very limited) absorbency rate of the stone itself, but exclusively with its natural chemical make-up. Soda, drinks, lemonade, orange juice, vinegar, salad dressing, generic cleaning products … you name it, will damage the stone surface by just becoming in contact with it in a matter of a few seconds. These damages will look like “water spots” or “water rings.”
No sealer for stone under the sun will ever offer one iota of protection against those occurrences, which represent the only problem you will ever have with travertine.
Bottom line: the wrong stone for the wrong application. End of story."

Now that you know that, do you still want to "seal" your travertine floors? ;) :shades:
If your travertine tiles are polished you do NOT want to install them in a kitchen. If you will, you will then be looking for the "magic sealer" that does not exist, to prevent them "weird stains" that ain't no stains! :twitch:
Forget about the stupid sealer and concentrate yourself at learning how to properly take care of your floors. Travertine could be a very enjoyable stone (I personally love it!), but you have to get to know its limitations if you don't want to be sorry!
Should you be interested, I'm currently running a special promotion on my educational literature and you can have my manitenance guidelines for residential stone installations free of charge just for the asking! Just gimme a shout through the Contact Us section of my website listed below. :)
Ciao and good luck,

[KChurch1]

I appreciate Maurizio wanting to protect the consumer from the over use of sealers, but not all stones and not all sealers are created equal. You need to test your stone and your sealer before making a decision. We sealed a honed travertine shower just the other day ... it needed sealing and accepted the sealer with no problem.

[Maurizio Bertoli]

Dear Karen:
No, I'm not trying the "protect" consumers from the over-use of impregnator/sealers. Not in this particular instance, at least.
What I'm trying to do is to protect them from the results of the over-promotion of impregnator/sealers.
Because of they way impregnator/sealers have been touted by their producers and distributors over the years, the vast majority of consumers have gotten a totally wrong idea of what these types of products will do for them and their stone. They are primarily expecting a type of "protection" that they will never get. And the one that they will get is important in certain instances, not very important in the majority of cases, and totally useless - when not outright detrimental - in several others.
That is the message I'm trying to deliver.
About sealing honed travertine in a shower stall, my record shows that I've never been against it.
In this case, however, our inquirer is talking about travertine floors that I have reasons to assume are going to be polished and that they are going to be installed in the kitchen, too ("every room except the bedroom"). And that is a totally different scenario for which a sealer will do absolutely nothing, nada, nil and squat all added up together! :)
It may just do some good to the grout, but that is not the motivation that had Linh start this thread. She's specifically inquiring about (polished) travertine on floors.
By the same token that stones and impregnator/sealers were not created equal, neither are scenarios, are they?! ;) :cool:
Ciao and good luck,

[doitright]

Hi Linh, Welcome! :)

In answer to your question:

My question is how do I go about sealing the tile and polishing it. What is the proper ways of doing it?

We actually need to know - Have you selected a stone that is polished or honed? Can you be a bit more specific on your question, about polishing.

Many fine points have been brought up here, but can become very confusing.

We would love it if you took the time to register. It will make following this post a lot easier if you should forget to attach your name. ;)

[uylinh]

Thank you everyone for coming to my rescue.
First of all, I wanted to say that this forum is the best and the people here are so curteous and helpful. As my son always say: You're the bomb!

Well, the remodeling project that we undertook, has became an enormous task. It has taken us one year already and it's not finished yet. That said, here is the detail of my dilema. We laid the 18x18 travertine in our livingroom, dinning room, kitchen, family room, and the bath rooms. The travertine tiles that we have are honed, not polished. We just finshed laying it down and not yet grouted. The person that I got the tile from mentioned to me that I should polish and treated with imprenator it when I'm done. I like to have that shinny look, not glossy but shinny, like when I stepped into the 5-star hotel or bank. I don't know if I can do it myself or have the pro do it.

This is the first time that I work with natural stone. So, I am not familar with it yet. That is why I seek out the help from the pros in this forum. I figured I would trust more of the people that actually worked on the stone rather than the person trying to make money by selling me their products and services.

Linh

[Maurizio Bertoli]

Dear Linh:
Me corteous? Why, thank you, but I have the funny feeling that someone here could put up an argument about that!! Besides, I have a "reputation" to keep up!! :D :D
Well now, are we confused or what? :confused:
An impregnator/sealer will do nothing to change the original factory finish. In fact, none of the stuff is to remain on the stone surface! You will apply a good-quality impregnator/sealer to your tiles in consideration of the fact that they are hone-finished and, therefore, a little absorbent. But if you like the shine, you should have gotten the polished counterpart of your tiles, providing that you would not have them installed in the kitchen! :cry:
Now, considering that stone is not polished by putting some sorta sealer onto it, but rather by abrasion and friction - like gemstone - all you can do is to have a professional stone refinisher (a legit one, not a quack) to powder-polish your floor, or to bring it up to a high-hone with diamond pads. (Not in the kitchen, though!) If the latter is going to be your choice, you will have to consider that the floor will have to be ground first in order to avoid "picture-frames" (a.k.a. "V lines"), which would represent an eyesore. The grinding will also create another problem, because it will take out a lot of the factory filler and, consequently, the open holes will need to be re-filled (translation: $$$). :(
Conclusion, unless you're ready to spend on or around $3.00 per square foot (option 1: powder-polishing), or on or around $8.00 per square foot (option 2: grinding, re-filling, honing, some more re-filling, and finally high-honing), my advice is to keep your floor looking as it looks now.
Ciao and good luck,

[John Bridge]

Hi Linh, ;)

I know what you are talking about. The only way you'll get any sheen onto your tiles is through the use of some sort of topical finish. The problem, as Karen Church explains frequently, is that all topical finishes have to be removed and re-done from time to time, and that can be a bother and an expensive item, too. The products are available, though. Aquamix, Stone Tech, Stone Glamor and others make topical finishes.

I don't recommend it. I recommend you stay with your honed look.

[KChurch1]

Another option is to use an enhancing impregnator sealer on your stone. This will give your stone more color, but without the shine. A good enhancing impregnator sealer will also protect your stone against oil and water based staining.

[KChurch1]

Polishing a honed travertine is done ideally as Maurizio stated.... ground flat and honed with diamonds. There is another option that can bring a shine to your travertine with honing powders and polishing powders/compounds that will float over the lippage, but... as Maurizio stated... if the lippage is severe enough you will have picture framing where the edges do not receive the same polish as the rest of the stone. I have a picture of a travertine floor honed and polished just using powders at:
http://kchurch1.smugmug.com/gallery/36766/1
This floor didn't have severe lippage.

[Maurizio Bertoli]

John:
I make a topical finish (two, actually: one for residential and the other one for commercial use), but I didn't mention anything about these kinds of products because they are not meant to produce a finish. (Unless you make reference to certain urethane-like finishes that are used on slate and other flagstones. But they couldn't be applied on travertine or other smooth stones, though.) They are all meant to preserve (protect) a highly polished factory finish. Applying them on a honed-finished stone will create the problems that you mentioned, and on top of that will produce a non-uniform, ugly-looking finish. Unless of course, we're talking about janitorial-grade products (waxes, metal-interlock, acrylics, thermoplastic, etc.), in which case they would give you a unform finish all right: the floor will look like plastic all over and in a very uniform way!! Plus again the hustle of the "buff & strip" routine :(

Karen:
What's the matter with you, woman??! :D I did offer the powder-polishing (without grinding) as option 1. But then again, you'd be getting a high polish. If you want something less shiny (like Linh seems to be after), then your only option is diamond high-honing (800 grit?), in which case the floor must be ground. ;) :shades:
Ciao and good luck,

[Jim Cuviello]

Karen,

Do you only use powders to hone and polish or do you also use diamond honing pads?

[Jim Cuviello]

If trazertine is so dense how doe it accept the color enhancer?

Is there a differnce in honed finished travertine and polish finished travertine in terms of applying an impregnator?

[Maurizio Bertoli]

Jim:
Most honed travertine does not accept much a color enhancer, although such types of products are thinner and therefore more penetrating that a regular impregnator. After all, black granite, which is indeed very dense, takes a color enhancer quite nicely. There are certain travertines, especially the dark-colored ones that do take a color enhancer. All one has to do to find out is to spill some water on the stone and let it sit there for 10 minutes or so. Wipe it dry and, if the area where the water had been sitting has become darker, that is what you will get by applying a color enhancer.
About your second question, travertine is usually quite dense even when hone-finished. Its polished counterpart does not absorb anything. Like I had the opportunity to say, in my professional career I saw, MAYBE, a dozen stains on marble. I never saw one on travertine. Not a single one! And, trust me, I've seen a lot of travertine!! Of course, like in the case of marble, I saw 3.5 gazillions of "water stains" and "water rings" on travertine!... :uhh: ;) :shades:
Ciao and good luck,

[KChurch1]

We work with diamonds, powders and compounds to get the desired finish the client is looking for. The honing powders take more time and when used prior to a high gloss polish it won't achieve a factory finish like diamond honing will. But we have used this process when the client doesn't wish to go through the "grinding the floor flat" process that needs to be done when using diamonds. We have also used this process when sanded grout is involved.
Just last week we used diamonds to grind a sandblasted blue limestone floor flat and then used a 220 grit honing powder to leave a nice smooth honed finish. We are going to enhance the floor this week so that the color more evenly matches the highly honed/semi gloss finish on the counters and tub surround.
Earlier last week we removed a purple stain on the floor of a travertine shower... purple ink from a stamp on the bottom of a shampoo bottle. And we removed oil stains from the polished travertine counter of an island bbq... along with several etches. We do these things on a regular basis.

[Jim Cuviello]

Who's products do you use? What do you like about the compounds? Are the compunds like past with honing powder mixed in?

[KChurch1]

I use a white aluminum oxide powder from an abbrasives company... buying it in bulk. I also use a lot of Stone Tech honing powders... they have several grits available from 180 up to 800 grit. The polishing powders are good too, but I like the Stone Medic MPC and the polishing powder that Maurizio has available. I like the diamonds that Maurizio sells ... they perform very well.
I adjust our method and products used depending on the results the client is looking for.

[Jim Cuviello]

Have you ever used Maurizio's powder?

[KChurch1]

Maurizio's polishing powder saved a White Thassos floor we were working on... it's very good polish.... we use it on occasion.

[uylinh]

Let me say thank you foe everyone inputs. There are a lot of great comments and recommendation.

I finished laying the tiles, and I like the way it looks. Therefore, I am abandoning the idea of having it "polished". I like the hone finished look. Now, I have to use the impregnator once the grout is done. Any suggestion on the brand or the type of impregnator that I should use? I'm assuming theat using the impregnator should "seal" the stone? And how should I apply the impregnator?

I'm attaching a picture of the floor in the kitchen. Comments anyone?
Oops. There is a limit of 50kb file. My picture is 1.99mb. Sorry. I was hoping you guys can see my work.

Linh

[John Bridge]

Hi Linh,

We have a good explanation of how to reduce the size of pictures posted in our Liberry. You keep your two meg orignals but make smaller copies that you can post. Here you go.

http://johnbridge.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=14926

[Unregistered]

Impregnator 511 Porous Plus...

[KChurch1]

Stone Tech Professional's Heavy Duty Stone Sealer is an exceptional sealer and much more user friendly than a solvent based sealers. We used just over a gallon to seal almost 600 sf of honed travertine the other day. How many sq ft do you have?

[Jim Cuviello]

Stone Tech does make great products although thier impregnator/sealer line is very confusing. They make twelve, yes twelve different impregnator/sealer/grout realese products. They are getting as bad as Spartan Chemical with thier floor finishes. Why do they need so many? Latley we have been using mbstone.com impregnator. It is one of the few that offers a ten year warranty. When we go out and sell jobs this is a huge advantage to us.