Saltillo/Slate/Flagstone Restoration
Top benefits of cleaning and sealing your Saltillo,Slate,Flagstone tiles.
Interior and exterior saltillos/slate/flagstone need to be cleaned the moment they are removed from the box, you will find that they have a fine powder and some minor dirt you are going to want to remove. This way the sealer will have a true bond to the tile and will fill the pores while if you DON’T clean them, the sealer wont saturate completely into the clay.
This is usually where the stone problem begins. The initial installation. We've seen grout stuck on the tile beneath the sealer along with footprints and dirt. All these problems are then sealed in, giving you the impression that it will just clean off the surface, but no, at that point you will need to remove that old finish and clean the bare tile.
Feel like your stones are out of control?
After the saltillos/flagstone/slate are cleaned and dried out completely you need to choose a sealer. We don’t recommend putting a glossy shine topical coating sealer on the exterior because they don’t hold up to the elements such as rain, sprinklers, rain, UV rays, improper drainage, (which causes puddling and the puddling is murder on your sealer, slowly breaking it down and over time, the sealer on the tiles begin to turn white and cloudy and starts to blister and peel.
Interior Saltillo/Flagstone/Slate
Indoors, we recommend a topical coating glossy sealer. There’s a ton of them on the market but we offer either a low-lustre or a wet look, whatever our customer prefers. Low-lustre is really popular right now.
If applied correctly then either sealer will hold up to foot traffic and protect the Tiles and grout for years. One’s just shinier than the other.
Remember stripping removes all of the sealer down to the raw tile and grout, where CLEANING on the other hand, dulls the floors and only removes the surface dirt and scratches. If you do proper maintenance, you should never have to strip your floor.
We will challenge any other company, If they can do a better job than us, we will pay for it!! But remember, you get what you pay for…
