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Quarry Tiled Balcony Renovation Notting Hill W11

Quarry Tiled Balcony Patio Renovated for Notting Hill Landlord

The Quarry tiles in the photographs below were actually installed on the balcony of a flat in London’s famous Notting Hill W11. The property had been rented out and not surprisingly never maintained properly by the tenants.

Quarry Tiled Balcony Patio Before Cleaning Notting Hill W11

There was a lot of grime and algae on the tiles which made the patio look very uninviting. The landlord was keen to rent out the flat as soon as possible and the balcony needed a end of tenancy clean to sort it out before potential tenants were shown round.

Deep Cleaning a Quarry Tiled Balcony Patio Floor

Having been entrusted with the keys and having negotiated appropriate parking I went round on a warm day to renovate the tiles and get them in the best condition possible in advance of the viewing. Fortunately, the lift was working so after a couple of trips up and down with various items of equipment I was soon setup and ready to get going.

To get the quarry tiles clean I used a strong treatment of Tile Doctor Remove and Go which was sprayed onto the tiles and left to soak in for fifteen minutes to allow time for the solution to get to work breaking down the dirt and old sealers. Then, I ran over each tile multiple times with a floor buffer fitted with a Black scrubbing pad. I also used a stiff brush along the grout lines to get them clean, however, the staining was bad so short of grout colouring or re-grouting I was only able to make a modest improvement. The landlord just wanted the balcony to be presentable, so I stuck to getting them as clean as possible.

Once finished cleaning the now dirty cleaning solution was rinsed off with water and extracted using a wet vacuum. I was then able to inspect the floor and carry out spot cleaning where I felt more work was needed. One of the problems I found was the presence of limescale and to remove that I realised I needed to use an acidic product that would dissolve it.

To treat the limescale I gave the floor a second clean using Tile Doctor Acid Gel which was scrubbed in with handheld brushes and another fresh black pad. Once done, the tiles were rinsed again, and a wet vacuum was employed to get the tiles as dry as possible. Fortunately, the sun came around that side of the building towards the afternoon and the patio was bathed in sunlight allowing it to dry faster.

Sealing a Quarry Tiled Balcony Patio Floor

The quarry tiles needed to be completely dry before I could seal them and with the weather forecast looking good overnight and into the next day so I left them to dry off completely overnight.

The next day I returned and started by checking the tiles were dry using a damp meter. The readings were good, so I was able to start with the application of a protective sealer which for these tiles I used Tile Doctor Colour Grow.

Only a couple of coats were required however it is quite time consuming, and you have to wait 30 minutes between coats. This sealer has a breathable formula which is well suited for use on this patio, and it contains a colour enhancer which helps to bring out the colours in the Quarry tile.

Quarry Tiled Balcony Patio After Cleaning Sealing Notting Hill W11

For the regular cleaning of sealed Quarry tiles, I recommend Tile Doctor Neutral Clean which is supplied in a concentrate so a 1 litre bottle goes a long way. You can’t use strong cleaning products on sealed tiles as they will prematurely erode the sealer so Neutral Cleaner is an ideal choice.

Professional Renovation of Balcony Quarry Tiles in Central London

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Limestone tiles hallway cleaned and polished in Notting Hill

This was a Limestone tiled hallway at a house in Notting Hill, London W2 where extensive renovations had just been completed. The floor had been badly affected by being left uncovered during the building works as well as having a build-up of many years of dirt and stains on its surface. The tiles had been laid more than twenty years ago and had not been cleaned or sealed since.

The customer was considering replacing the floor as she believed that it was beyond restoring. As well as ingrained dirt there were several quite severe rust stains and large ring-shaped marks that looked as if they had come off the bottom of paint or varnish tins.

Cleaning the Limestone Tiled Floor

I used a black buffing pad on my Numatic buffing machine and neat Tile Doctor “Pro-Clean” to perform an initial deep clean on the floor. In order to re-polish the floor and not leave it too porous I then used the a red and then a white diamond encrusted burnishing pad. Even after this some stains remained, so at this point I used Tile Doctor “Reduxa” stone stain remover to attack the stubborn ingrained marks. All of these were successfully removed except for two very deep rust stains which, never-the-less, were reduced in size and intensity by about 70%.

After this I used a yellow burnishing pad to return the floor to its original finish.
At this point, as one of the tiles was broken at the edge and a piece missing, I used Akemi stone floor repair filler to fill in the broken piece with a filler that is stronger than the original stone.

Sealing the Limestone Floor

The next day I returned to seal using Tile Doctor “Colour Grow” Sealer.
Unfortunately, I forgot to take a “before” picture until after I had started this job but still the transformation is clear from the photos that I took. When the limestone was fully restored it was found to have attractive bedding lines running through it and to be all-in-all a very nice looking floor.

The customer was amazed by what had been achieved and very pleased that she had opted for restoration over the far more expensive option of replacement.

Notting Hill