Leamington Spa

Slate Tiled Floor Before and After Restoration in Leamington Spa Pub Restaurant

Rejuvenating a Slate Tiled Bar Area at a Pub in Leamington Spa

The Drawing Board is a Gastropub and bar in Leamington Spa with a fantastic homely aesthetic. Leamington Spa itself is a spa town in Warwickshire, home to The Royal Pump Rooms, the most famous of the spa baths that were opened in England in the late-18th and mid-19th centuries.

Slate Tiled Floor Before Restoration in Leamington Spa Pub Restaurant
I have eaten at the Drawing Board a few times in the past (great food!) and was really pleased to help the owner rejuvenate the Slate tiled floor in the bar area. He wanted the area cleaned and sealed to achieve a wet-look finish, however, because the pub is very popular amongst customers, I would only have a period of five hours to undertake the work. This meant an early morning start. I had carried out some maintenance work on the floor about 18 months ago, but during this time it had suffered a lot of foot traffic.

Slate Tiled Floor Before Restoration in Leamington Spa Pub Restaurant

Cleaning and Sealing a Slate Tiled Floor in a Bar Area

To begin, I used our product called Tile Doctor Oxy-Gel, which is an effective cleaner and coatings stripper, to remove the old acrylic coat on the tiles. Being in a gel form it’s easy to manage and holds in position allowing it to dwell on the stone and get to work on breaking the existing sealer down. Once applied it was left to soak into the Slate and then scrubbed in using a buffing machine fitted with a black scrubbing pad. The floor was then rinsed with water and the now soiled Oxy-Gel and water was removed with a wet vacuum.

With the tiles stripped of any remaining coatings, I turned my attention to the deep cleaning the grout lines with Tile Doctor Pro-Clean, which is a strong alkaline cleaner. The product was diluted with water and then scrubbed in manually using a stiff brush.

Following this, I rinsed the whole floor with fresh, cold water to remove any traces of product. Air movers were then installed to speed dry the stone as I needed to move quickly with only five hours to get the job done.

Once the floor was completely dry, I was able to seal it using two coats of Tile Doctor High Shine, which is a a specially formulated water-based blend of acrylic polymers designed to protect and enhance the appearance of natural stone whilst leaving a high sheen finish. Another advantage of the sealer is that being water based it leaves no smell as it dries which was important as being a pub we didn’t want to put the customers off.

Slate Tiled Floor After Restoration in Leamington Spa Pub Restaurant
I think you will agree the Slate floor looks significantly better and the new sealer will provide them with the protection they need to withstand heavy foot traffic. The owner of the pub was very pleased indeed!

Slate Tiled Floor After Restoration in Leamington Spa Pub Restaurant
 

Commercial Natural Stone Floor Maintenance at a Leamington Spa Public House

Rejuvenating a Slate Tiled Bar Area at a Pub in Leamington Spa Read More »

Victorian Tiled Floor Before and After Rebuild Leamington Spa

Victorian Hallway Floor Rebuilt and Restored in Leamington Spa

As you can see from the photographs below this Victorian tiled hallway was in quite a state and not only needed a thorough clean and fresh seal but needed to be rebuilt in parts.

Victorian Tiled Floor During Rebuild Leamington Spa
Leamington Spa or Royal Leamington Spa to give its full name is one of the original UK Spa towns where people would visit to bathe the waters which are supposed to have medicinal properties, the town has many regency period properties and so Victorian floors

Rebuilding and Cleaning a Victorian Tiled Hallway

A good 30% of the floor tiles were lose and it took three days to rebuild the screed levelling compound before refitting loose tiles and new ones had to be cut to size, fixed in place and then re-grouted.

Victorian Tiled Floor During Rebuild Leamington Spa
On day 4 a 400 grit coarse burnishing pad was applied to clean up the whole floor.
This was followed by scrubbing the tile and grout with Tile Doctor Pro-clean mixed 50/50 with NanoTech HBU remover followed by Remove and Go and finally treated with Acid Gel to remove the grout haze. After that the White tiles were steam cleaned to get them as clean and white as possible.

Victorian Tiled Floor During Rebuild Leamington Spa
The floor was thoroughly rinsed after each treatment and the slurry extracted using a wet vacuum.

Victorian Tiled Floor During Rebuild Leamington Spa

Sealing Victorian floor tiles

I left the floor for 5 days so it could thoroughly dry out and settle following the numerous treatments and then came back to seal the tiles, I used a damp test meter first to verify the floor was dry and ready for sealing. Once happy I proceed to apply a couple of coats of Tile Doctor Colour Grow which is a colour enhancing sealer that soaks into the tile protecting it from within and leaves a matt finish.

Victorian Tiled Floor After Rebuild Leamington Spa
A lot of work went into restoring this floor but I’m really pleased with the way it came out and as you can imagine the owner was really happy with the transformation that had taken place in their house.

Victorian Tiled Floor After Rebuild Leamington Spa
 

Rebuilding and Restoring a Victorian Tiled Hallway Floor in Warwickshire

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Terracotta Floor After

Removing Linseed Oil from Terracotta in Leamington Spa

This Terracotta floor in Leamington Spa had been sealed previously with Linseed Oil; apparently the tiler had dipped the Tile into the oil to make sure he had an even coverage. Linseed Oil is a traditional way of sealing terracotta however it makes the tiles significantly darker and over the years it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain.

Terracotta Floor Before Terracotta Floor Before

Cleaning Terracotta Tiles

To remove the oil and clean the floor we used a 50/50 mix of Pro-Clean and NanoTech Ultra-Clean, the strong cleaning power of the alkaline Pro-Clean mixed with the tiny abrasive particles in the Ultra-Clean combine together to make a powerful cleaning agent. We left the solution to dwell and soak into the tile for twenty minutes giving it time to break down the oil before working it in with a rotary buffing machine fitted with a black scrubbing pad. We then scrubbed and cleaned the grout lines by hand using stiff grout brushes and picked up the soiled cleaning solution using a wet vacuum. Last step was to rinse the floor down to remove any remaining chemical and effectively neutralise the floor before sealing; to do this we used a high pressure spinner tool which is an industrial system fitted into our van that delivers high pressure hot water to a lance whilst simultaneously removing the resulting water with a secondary suction action.

Terracotta Tile Sealing

We let the floor dry overnight and returned the next day only to notice that in a number of places linseed oil had dried on the surface to form some oil spots. These had to be removed before we began the sealing process so the spots were treated with a strong sealer remover product called Remove and Go and the floor was re-cleaned using an industrial steam vacuum.

We left the floor to dry again overnight and came back the third day to seal it, this time I’m pleased to say the floor was clear of the Linseed Oil and so we began to seal it using Tile Doctor Colour Grow which is a breathable colour intensifying sealer which brings out the natural colours in the tile surface as well as providing durable stain protection; Four coats were sufficient to seal the floor, it is a time consuming task however as you need to make sure the sealer has dried before applying the next coat.

Terracotta Floor After Terracotta Floor After

This job had taken three days and I had only quoted for two however we stuck to our original quote and only charged for the two days.

Terracotta Tiles Cleaned of Linseed Oil and Resealed

Removing Linseed Oil from Terracotta in Leamington Spa Read More »

Granite Worktop before and after cleaning and sealing

Granite Worktop

Adding Shine to a Granite Worktop

We don’t just clean tiled floors at Tile Doctor we also cover stone worktops including Marble and Granite. In the example below we were called to a customer near Leamington Spa who had tried a number of different products in order to achieve a glossy shine.

Granite Worktop showing a dull matt finish
Granite Worktop Before

We applied Tile Doctor Pro-Clean sprayed on to the work area to breakdown the previous products that had been applied.

Granite Worktop after being sealed
Granite Worktop After

The Granite worktop was high pressure steamed vacuumed and then left to dry before being sealed with an impregnating stone enhancer with extra darkening action which intensifies the natural colour and also masks defects and imperfections in the stone. The Granite was then buffed to get that real deep shine.

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