Common Natural Stone Problems & Solutions
When you have natural stone surfaces in your home, bar, restaurant, hotel, or superyacht, marble polishing and other natural stone restoration services are often necessary to keep your floors, bar tops, countertops, and other surfaces looking their best.
Here are some of the most common stone problems and solutions. If you have any of these problems, get a free quote from Just Call Classic to see how we can help.
Loss of Shine or Dulling
Over time, natural stone can lose its shine due to wear and tear on countertops or in high-traffic areas on floors. Since marble is softer than granite and other natural stones, it’s especially prone to dulling.
To help protect your marble or other natural stone floorings, you can place mats in high-traffic areas. You might also ask everybody to remove their shoes at the front door to help prevent the scuffing and friction that can dull your flooring. Keeping marble flooring and countertops clean also helps prevent a loss of shine.
Just Call Classic can help you with kitchen, living room, and bathroom marble polishing and restoration.
Efflorescence
New stone installations and stone that have been exposed to massive amounts of water (like flooding), can suffer from efflorescence, a white powdery residue on the stone’s surface. Buffing the stone can help remove efflorescence until the stone is completely dry, which may take as long as a year.
Cracking/Chipping
Chips and cracks in stone can happen in the settling process, during installation, or due to outside forces. For example, a shifting sub-floor can cause stone tile to crack. Additionally, any force with another object – like dropping a heavy pot on your countertop – can lead to chipping or cracking.
Luckily, small chips and cracks can often be repaired without the need to replace the entire slab or tile. Typically, polyester, epoxy, or another material is matched to the stone’s color and used to fill in and bond the crack or chip.
Staining
Unfortunately, all stone surfaces, especially marble, may be easily stained, and stains can be difficult to remove. Many drinks, foods, oils, inks, or rust can stain stone countertops or flooring.
To prevent stains, clean up spills as soon as possible by blotting them with a cloth or paper towel. You should also get your stone surfaces regularly sealed to help prevent spills from causing stains.
If it’s too late to prevent a stain, Just Call Classic may be able to help remove your natural stone stains.
Yellowing
Several different things can cause natural stone surfaces to turn yellow, such as age, oxidized iron (especially common with white marble), waxes and coatings turning yellow over time, and embedded dirt or grime.
To prevent yellowing, make sure your stone is properly sealed and keep it as clean as possible.
Yellowing caused by wax or dirt buildup can be cleaned using a wax stripper or an alkaline cleaner. Learn to love natural yellowing caused by oxidation or age – even the expert technicians at Just Call Classic may not be able to do anything about that.
Spalling, Pitting, and Flaking
Spalling (small pieces of stone flaking off) and pitting are common on stone exposed to large amounts of water. While efflorescence is caused by mineral salts affecting the surface of the stone, spalling and pitting are caused by mineral deposits getting under the stone’s surface and causing pressure to build up.
Sadly, spalling, pitting, and flaking are nearly impossible to repair. We recommend you replace the stone, instead.
Etching
Etching – a dull spot in the stone – is caused by marble, travertine, limestone, or onyx reacting to acidic foods, drinks, or cleaners. It’s a surface erosion of the stone itself. Keep all acids away from your natural stone surfaces, and ensure you aren’t using cleaners with acid in them.
While light etching may be removed with marble polishing powder, deep etching requires resurfacing the stone.
Water Spots and Rings
Water spots and rings are the hard water minerals (such as magnesium and calcium) left behind after water evaporates. Rings and spots are especially common on marble surfaces.
Applying stone paste wax can help prevent water spots and rings, as can immediately wipe up any spills.
The polishing powder can often remove water rings and spots. If that doesn’t work, honing is your next best option.
Uneven Tile-Lippage
Improper natural stone installation can cause uneven tile-lippage, which is when tiles are set unevenly, with the edge of one tile being higher than the next. Lippage higher than the thickness of a nickel is considered excessive and the tile must be ground down to flatten the floor.
Just Call Classic can help fix uneven tile lippage and other common stone problems.
White Stun Marks
Common in marble and often confused with chips, stun marks are caused by pressure in certain pin-pointed areas that create small movements that damage the crystals within the stone. High-heeled shoes are a common cause of white stun marks.
Stun marks can be deep, opening the door for many other stone problems. Honing may help eliminate stun marks.
Call The South Florida Natural Stone Restoration Experts
Whether you need South Florida hotel marble restoration, kitchen marble polishing, natural stone restoration, yacht marble restoration, or any other stone cleaning or restoration services, Just Call Classic, Inc. is your local, family-owned natural stone restoration and polishing company. We serve Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties.
Our highly trained service technicians have experience with every type of granite, marble, terrazzo, and other natural stone surfaces, especially floors, showers, and countertops.
Contact us today for a free quote.
