It’s a classic look. Small hexagon shaped marble tiles in a bathroom. Reminiscent of the old-school mosaic flooring in historic homes.
But if you are planning to have it installed in your bathroom, here are somethings to keep in mind.
Marble is sensitive to anything acidic. It doesn’t matter what sealer you put on it. If something acidic comes into contact with the stone, it’s going to leave a spot, ring, line, or splash that you can’t get rid of. Many products and soaps that we use in a bathroom are acidic, so be careful. And the blue toilet bowl cleaner… Please, don’t have that in your marble bathroom ever.
A particular challenge to hexigon marble floors is the grout that it is installed with. Marble is supposed to only be installed with UNsanded grout. Because regular sanded grout will scratch it. Epoxy grout will scratch it. (And I don’t care what the guy at the tile store says, or what the grout people say. I have seen too many jobs where epoxy grout has scratched the floor or caused oth problems for the marble.)
Back to the hexagon marble. Most installers will not use unsanded grout to install it. Why? Because unsanded grout is not as strong or durable as sanded. And with the smaller hexagon tiles, there are more grout lines on the floor that if you put in 12″ tiles, so more of your floor is made up of grout. You get what I’m saying?
So you can’t expect your floor to ever be scratch free. Even if you go through a floor restoration process, you can’t expect it to be scratch free. Because over time, tiny-tiny particles of grout become loose and then cause abrasions. (Epoxy grout I would think not as much.)
Epoxy grout can be very difficult to work with. The clean-up process and time is different than with normal sanded/cement type grout. If it doesn’t get cleaned up fast, it can be difficult to remove.
This floor is an example of epoxy grout going a little wrong. In order to get residue off of the floor, one of the contractor’s workers used what was apparently an acid product. The worker didn’t know of course that acid will mess up marble.
Fortunately, most of the acidic spills were not sever etches, so we were able to help them out using a polishing process. Most of the time restoration is needed, but because of both logistics and financial constraints this wasn’t possible. End result: floor looks beautiful. It even has a better, clearer shine on many of the stones compared to how it came from factory.
For all your marble floor polishing needs, please visit us at marblepolishingpittsburgh.com.
