Suzannah

[Suzannah]

Hi All, I know nothing about tiles so I am looking for advice, I recently lifted up a carpet, 2 sets of linoleum, and cork tiles in my living room and very surprisingly found a beautiful floor of huge scottish slate tiles, they must have been put in my very old farmhouse in 1800's, I have only recently moved in, however a friend who said he could grout and seal them for me told me to get HG cement grout and film remover to clean up the edges, I tested this on the slate in one corner, left it for 15mins and then washed and scrubbed it and it worked so I went on to do rest of floor, washed and cleaned it, unfortunately this morning i got a shock when I came downstairs to see it has discoloured the slate a cloudy white colour, is the slate ruined or is there anything I can do? Ie get a disc for my grinder and try to polish floor?If anyone can help me I would be very grateful for advice thanks Suzannah

 

[Dan]

Welcome to tilersforums.com | Tile Forums | Tiling Forum!

Hello Suzannah, welcome aboard www.tilersforums.com. Stick around, I'm sure you'll like the place.

 

[Diamond Pool Finishers]

hi:welcome:to the forum sue

 

[hillhead]

:welcome: suzanna,
I'm not sure what has happened here but i'v never seen it go like that.
personally i would have cleaned it up with something with less strength to see how the floor was but slate is layered so there should be no problem retrieving it
Someone with more experience will come along here with a solution.

 

[faithhealer]

Hi Suzannah, welcome to the forum. Before the stone experts ask you, have you any pictures. Dont use your grinder on it though

 

[mikethetile]

:welcome:

 

[user123]

Susannah, hi, is the slate really discoloured or is it a pale, almost oily, film on top?

 

[Suzannah]

I will put some photo's on, how do I do this? it is discoloured I would say but if you see photo's you will get better idea

 

[Suzannah]

I will try to put on photo's

 

[user123]

Click on 'post reply' rather than use the quick reply, and then on the attachment paper clip, which opens a drop down menu where you can browse for your pics on the pc. don't make them too large... also, wipe over the white with some toilet paper and see if anything comes off on it.... I have had an experience like this in the past and it might be the same...

PS, there is no apostrophy in photos... :smilewinkgrin:

 

[Suzannah]

I tried with toilet roll nothing came off

 

[Suzannah]

I have put on photos what do u think?

 

[united]

:welcome: to the forum, I'm not sure what the problem is but someone will be on soon who will help you out

 

[user123]

Ouch!!! How annoying is that... hmmm... not the same as my problem was (mine had to do with old cork adhesive on slate...but let's use some logic... the grout cleaner is acidic, let's try to balance that with an alkaline solution and see what happens... dissolve just a bit of salt in a spoon full of water and wipe this on a small section of the white... wait a few minutes, rinse of with boiled water (just to keep the experiment pure and see if it has solved this?

 

[enduro]

Are these definitely slate? the reason i ask is i had a granite floor that had water damage and they were very old and they were grouted with lime mortar and as soon as they got wet they went exactly the same as your tiles. So you cleaning the edges could have caused this problem.