just to follow up, i am going to flatten the floor, and regrout it with unsanded grout, using admixture and not water. . Its a living i know, but I dont get a lot of pleasure out of honing brand new floors that were only installed a couple weeks ago. I have done my best to get the word out
about using unsanded grout on polished marble, but people just go with price and pay untrained tile setters on marble instead of using marble setters. I got spoiled when i first started out because I was used to working on floors set by the Union tile setters who always grouted with epoxy,which I think is the best way to do it.
oh i know..
I would say the problem is the customers are using tile installer not marble setter , direct you customer to the MIA website they will find their answers there. Non sanded grout for grout lines no larger than 1/8 inch sanded grout is used when grout lines are larger than 1/8 inch. The installer is correct it will crack out over time if the grout line is too large. Marble grout lines are to be no larger than 1/8 inch. Sound like th installer in your area need to understand the differences in grouts and their uses.
John E
Freitag
Director
The Stone & Tile School
Office 407-567-7652
Cell 407-615-0134
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From: john jackson [mailto:kcstoneguy@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday,
January 08, 2013 8:35 AM
To: Stone and Tile PROS Technical Support
Subject: RE: [sccpartners] scratched marble installs
I understand the honing part, I was just wondering if there was some one step miracle I was unaware of...like would powder polishing take care of it, or a diamond impregnated pad..its only about
150 sf but its going to be difficult. lots of high tiles. Cant tell you how many calls i get each month where the new installs have been scratched with the sanded grout. The tile setters are telling people that non sanded grout does not work, just cracks
out, etc..which of course is not true.
Yes thats what we do most of the time. Also just explain to the customer you may leave some scratches.The biggest issue and this should be explained to the customer-is getting the grout lines cleaned of slurry.
But we havent had any problems as of yet.
You could also scrub clean the floor first to wash away the loose sanded grout and then follow polishing steps. The hardness of the stone may
also
dictate how much damage the sanded grout causes.
The synthetic diamond pads float well over the grout lines. Just let them know you can try that and if you have a problem with the grout scratch the stone you will need to pull out the sanded grout and re-grout with un-sanded grout and use a latex instead of water for the grout mix.
On Jan 7, 2013, at 7:07 PM, john jackson wrote:
i keep getting
calls on brand new marble installs with sanded grout, where the grouting has scratched the marble..All i know is to flatten and repolish the floors, with maybe regouting the floor. are there other options ?
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