Natural stone cleaning and sealing in McCormick Ranch and Gainey Ranch

Either side of Hayden between Indian Bend and Shea · built 1970s and 1980s

Previous sealers are the complication

On floors this age the interesting question is rarely the soil. It is what has already been applied to the stone.

Topical coatings, waxes and acrylic finishes were common through the eighties and nineties, and plenty of these floors carry several layers of product, yellowed and worn unevenly. The soil is underneath the coating rather than on top of it, so ordinary cleaning does very little.

That needs establishing during the inspection rather than discovered halfway through a job, because it changes both the approach and the time involved. Anything you know about the floor's history genuinely helps, even "somebody did something to it in the nineties."

Slate behaves differently again

Common in this era and worth its own note, because it is not travertine and should not be treated like it.

Slate is layered, and it spalls, meaning thin flakes lift away from the surface over time. Aggressive cleaning accelerates that considerably, which is one of the few places where a heavy-handed approach does visible damage quickly.

It is also one of the best candidates for color enhancing sealer there is. Slate that has gone gray and flat comes back with genuine depth and variation, and the difference is more dramatic than on almost any other stone.

Stone that was installed well

Worth saying, because it is a real difference between these neighborhoods and newer ones.

A lot of the stone through here was laid by people who knew what they were doing, in an era when it was a considered choice rather than a standard builder option. Tight joints, level surfaces, and stone that has survived thirty years because it was installed properly.

That is worth maintaining. A well-installed stone floor is more or less permanent if it is cleaned correctly and kept sealed, and the cost of doing that every couple of years is trivial against replacement.

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 McCormick Ranch and Gainey Ranch

Elsewhere in Scottsdale

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