Natural stone cleaning and sealing in Grayhawk and Kierland

Scottsdale Road north of Bell, either side of the 101 · built 1990s through the 2010s

Nobody reseals until something goes wrong

The pattern here is consistent. The stone was sealed when the house was built, or shortly after, and never again.

Sealer wears out. Foot traffic abrades it, cleaning products break it down, and after a decade there is effectively nothing left on the surface. The stone is then absorbing everything that lands on it, which in a family kitchen is a great deal.

The water test settles it in five minutes. Drops of water on the stone: beading means the seal is intact, soaking in and darkening the stone means it has gone. Most floors in this neighborhood fail it, and the owners had no idea.

Kitchens are where the damage happens

Travertine and limestone in a working family kitchen is a genuinely demanding combination, and the problems are specific.

Acidic food is the main one. Citrus, tomato, wine, vinegar, anything that gets dropped and left. On unsealed stone that is not a stain, it is an etch, and it is permanent from the moment it happens.

Grease is the second, and it behaves differently on porous stone than on tile. It goes in rather than sitting on top, which is why a stone kitchen floor can look greasy in the traffic path and resist ordinary mopping entirely.

Sealing does not make stone bulletproof and we will not claim it does. What it does is buy you the minutes between a spill and the damage, which on a floor in a house with children is the whole difference.

The grout is usually worse than the stone

Frequently overlooked because people focus on the stone face, and it is often the thing making the floor look bad.

Grout between stone is porous in the same way grout between tile is, and after fifteen years in a family home a good proportion of the discoloration has gone permanent. Cleaning improves it without evening it out.

Grout color seal can be added to any stone package, over 40 colors, and it is priced as a tier rather than as an upsell. Clean plus grout color seal is $2.3375/sqft after the discount. You are never obliged to take a higher stone tier just to get the grout done.

pH-neutral products, and no acid on stone ever

The single most important thing on this site, and the reason a stone floor needs a different company from a tile floor.

Acid etches marble, travertine and limestone on contact. Not over time, not with repeated exposure. On contact. It dissolves the calcium carbonate the stone is made of, and what you are left with is a dull patch where the surface used to be.

That damage does not undo. Cleaning will not lift it, sealer will not hide it, and the only route back is honing and polishing with diamond pads, which is refinishing work.

We use pH-neutral, stone-safe products. There is no version of this job where an acidic cleaner touches your floor.

It is worth asking anybody you get a quote from what they use, and treating vagueness as an answer. A great deal of the etching we find on Scottsdale stone was put there by somebody who cleaned it.

What cleaning and sealing cannot fix

Being straight about this up front matters more on stone than on anything else, because the damage is permanent and expensive.

Etching is the dull spot where something acidic ate into the surface. Wine, citrus, vinegar, and a great many store-bought cleaners all cause it. It is damage to the stone rather than a stain sitting on it, so cleaning does not lift it and sealer does not conceal it.

Scratches and worn finish in traffic lanes are the same category. The surface itself has changed.

Fixing either means honing and polishing with diamond pads, which is refinishing work and not something we offer. We clean and seal. When what your floor actually needs is a refinisher, we will tell you that instead of taking the job. Full explanation here.

How we do it

1. Identify the stone and check the existing sealer. Travertine, marble, limestone and slate all behave differently, and the product that suits one can damage another. We also establish whether there is a sealer on there already and what condition it is in.
2. Clean with solutions matched to that stone. pH-neutral throughout, lifting embedded soil and mineral out of both the stone and the grout without touching the surface itself.
3. Seal, if you have chosen to. Clear to protect what is there, or color enhancing to deepen the natural color, plus grout color seal on the lines if you want that.
4. Walk it together. We look at the finished floor with you before anything gets loaded out.

Cleaning always comes first. Sealing over soil traps it under the coating rather than protecting anything, which is exactly why these are priced as tiers rather than sealing offered on its own.

How often to reseal

Reseal every one to two years depending on the sealer and how much traffic the area takes.

There is a test that settles it without anybody's opinion. Put a few drops of water on the stone and wait five minutes. If it beads and sits there, the seal is working. If it soaks in and darkens the stone, the seal has worn through and the stone is absorbing everything else too.

Unsealed stone in this climate is the thing to avoid. Hard water leaves mineral that bonds into a porous surface, desert dust settles into it, and both get harder to remove the longer they sit.

Questions from Grayhawk and Kierland

Elsewhere in Scottsdale

DC Ranch and Silverleaf · Troon and far north Scottsdale · McCormick Ranch and Gainey Ranch · Old Town Scottsdale · South Scottsdale