FAQs – Tile, Grout & Stone

Q –
Jim,

A customer of mine just asked me to clean some grout for her on her marble floor where her dogs had their way while she was away. I checked my supplies and found that I only have a little Viper Venom.

Did I hear once that Viper Venom is just a glorified stripper??  I have stripper and was wondering if I could use that as well.

Anticipating your response,
Dan

A —
Dan,

I would be careful identifying Viper Venom with stripper, as floor stripper as a pH range that can make it very damaging to many surfaces in the home that Viper Venom does not.  However, regardless of that, I wouldn’t even want you to get Viper Venom on marble.

Viper Venom (and stripper, and most degreasers) have agents in them that help them attack minerals in the water that interfere with their performance.  That also means those agents attack minerals called calcium carbonate, which is the mineral that makes what we call marble.

The grout used in marble is unsanded, and the grout lines should be very narrow.  You can’t use a grout brush on them, nor should you as marble also scratches easily.

For your customer’s sake, and obviously for yours, I’d recommend you wait and get some Stone Perfect, which is the best product I’ve ever used for cleaning marble and other natural stone.

Dan, I also need to caution you that what sometimes looks like “dirty marble” is really scratched marble.  Those small scratches are not always evident as scratches, but when you are done cleaning the marble may look just as dirty.

That said, the Stone Perfect, applied with a clean (not a bit of grit in it) soft brush will clean the grout lines beautifully. Dan, we have some new sales help for you also! Stone Care Solutions from Bridgepoint is has created two short sales videos to help you sell your stone cleaning and polishing services. You can get this DVD for FREE free with the purchase of any set of the Stone Care pads. 5,7,17, or 20”.

Click Here to see a short video for some super information you will like!

Jim

FAQs – Dull & Hazy Marble

Question –
Hey Jim,

I just cleaned some white marble, and it looks clean, but the traffic areas look dull and hazy, what do you have to clean that?
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Answer –
Good observation!

Those hazy areas are not likely dirt, but instead scratches where the tracked in gritty soil has damaged the marble.  No matter how much cleaning that you do, you can’t fix those scratches without polishing the marble.

Depending on the depth of the scratches, you’ll either need to use industrial diamonds and a weighted scrubber, or at least the Spinergy pad system. Also, advise your customer that the higher the shine that they require, the more often you’ll be back polishing out the scratches.

Simply put:
Marble in an ancient temple in Europe is white, but not reflective (sort of like chalk).  That flat finish will not show scratches.   If they want the marble to make a mirror type reflection, it can possibly show scratches in days.