Travertine floor - how to remove stain

[Utahtea]

Last year we had travertine tile floor put in our kitchen. We just noticed that we have a new stain or etching. Not sure what we spilled but this spot is right near the refrigerator. Would watermelon cause this? We tried cleaning it with Granite Gold Daily Cleaner and Mira Clean #1 but it's still there.

One picture was taken with a flash.
What can we do to remove this stain/etching?

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[Davestone]

Well,if the stone cleaners didn't take some of it out,it may be etched,but first a poultce should be tried.But first still you need to know what it is,otherwise you'll be trying a bunch of different things.you could start with a commercial stain remover,like this....http://www.braxton-bragg.com/products/stone_care_and_repair/...but if the stain was acidic and the stone is etched you'll need it rehoned,and i would recommend getting a pro for this.

[StoneBuddy]

Remember this: A stain is ALWAYS darker than the stone and etching is ALWAYS lighter than the stone. From the picture, I would deduce that this is an etch mark which will need to be honed out. Contact a local stone restoration contractor and he will be happy to help you.

[doitright]

Hi Terry :)

Since this is only one spot, and appears to be an etch, I would suggest you do a TEST on a spare piece if you have one.

So the first question is do you have a spare piece of this stone? :shades:

If not, are you willing to further damage your stone by experimenting on it?

I'll be more than happy to walk you through a procedure, but if not done properly, you will make the area worse, and the process is irreversable. If you don't like this option, call a pro, as the others have suggested.

[Utahtea]

Thank you everyone that responded. One nice thing about this spot is that it only can be seen when you are walking in from the garage to the kitchen at a certain angle. It's near the refrigerator which is around the corner from the entrance to the kitchen from inside the house. When coming in from the inside to the kitchen, you can not see the spot at all. So that is the good part. If we can't fix this ourselves, we will probably just leave it.

I have to laugh when you asked if we had extra titles...try the contractor under estimated the job by about 10 tiles, but we bought the last of a batch and DH was smart enought to just buy them all. We were still 2 tiles short so I went to a local store and they gave me two tiles that looked very similar but had been discontinued...we used those for the baseboard behind the refrigerator. So I don't have a big tile but I did save little pieces just for this purpose. They have not been sealed.

One last question. It's been almost a year since we did this job. Would resealing help prevent this if it's acid?


That first picture was taken with a flash. This picture was taken without a flash.

[StoneBuddy]

Penetrating sealers are designed to protect the inside of the stone from staining. What an etch is is a corrosion of the surface. No sealer on the market right now will successfully protect against acid etching. Unfortunately it is just part of the game.