Travertine

Travertine Restoration & Cleaning Services

Travertine is a unique and versatile stone

It is suitable to a wide range of decorative styles, from rugged and rustic to welcoming old world charm to stunning high-polished elegance. However, your travertine can become dirty or dull-looking, scratched, etched, cracked, chipped, or otherwise damaged with time and use. If this is true of your travertine, don’t replace it! Bay Shore Cleaning and Restoration can restore your travertine, not just making it look better, but making it look brand new again. Bay Shore Cleaning and Restoration provides expert interior and exterior travertine services, for all kinds of properties, from homes, apartments, and condos to offices and other commercial properties, warehouses, retail stores, restaurants, hotels, and more. Whether you need minor services like having your travertine cleaned and sealed or major services like extensive repair and restoration, we provide a full range of travertine care and maintenance services.

To Fill Or Not To Fill

Travertine in its original state has naturally occurring holes throughout. Part of travertine’s unique appeal is that it is available in two distinct forms — filled and unfilled. In “filled” travertine, a color-matched material is used at the factory to fill the holes, giving the stone a smooth finish. In “unfilled” travertine the natural holes remain exposed for a rustic, earthy finish. Both filled and unfilled travertine are beautiful in their own right, and both offer their own particular look and feel. If you have unfilled travertine, or the holes in your filled travertine have become exposed, and you want the holes to be filled, we can perform this service for you.

Filling Holes In Travertine: Floating

While this term may bring to mind inflatable lounge chairs or rubber duckies, travertine floating really has nothing to do with bodies of water. It is the process used to either change unfilled travertine surfaces to the smooth appearance of filled travertine or to repair filled travertine surfaces whose holes have become exposed due to time and wear. For repairs, we use filler tinted to match the rest of the surface, blending the repair site with the surrounding area, then honing and polishing to achieve a uniform finish. Changing a completely unfilled surface to a filled one is basically the same process, but offers a broader array of design choices, since you are not limited to a color that matches an existing filler.

Refinishing Travertine

Refinishing is similar to floating, in that you can restore a finish that is uneven or has become dulled by wear, scratches or other surface damage, or alter the finish entirely if you’re looking for a change of pace. Bay Shore Cleaning and Restoration is well versed in the types of finishes possible, as well as experienced in the techniques required to achieve them.

Travertine Grinding / Lippage Removal

Whether you want a floor that is flush with its grout lines for easier cleaning, or need to remedy uneven tiles that can be hazardous as well as unattractive, Bay Shore Cleaning and Restoration can take care of that for you. Using state-of-the art diamond grinding technology, we can remove excess stone to create a flat, level surface. Once the uneven tiles are leveled (this is called lippage removal), the travertine is honed and polished to your desired finish.

Travertine Floor Polishing & Honing

Bay Shore Cleaning and Restoration can hone your travertine surfaces to eliminate surface imperfections such as dull spots, scratches, etching and other wear and tear, resulting in a damage-free surface that looks like new again. With the damage erased, our expert technicians can polish your travertine using the appropriate diamond-infused pads or polishing powders, achieving a honed (soft matte) finish that is warm, inviting, and velvety smooth, a gorgeous glass-like polish, or something in between that suits your taste.

Travertine Cleaning – Normal to Deeply Soiled

While any travertine surface can become dirty and grimy with use, unfilled travertine with its naturally varying surface texture and inherent holes can be particularly challenging once dirt has had time to accumulate in the hollows and low points. Bay Shore Cleaning and Restoration can remove deeply imbedded soiling, strip away years of buildup of unsightly topical treatments, remove soap film in showers, get rid of soot on fireplaces, and resolve a host of other travertine cleaning problems, leaving your stone with the factory finish restored.

Sealing Travertine

Some natural stone types are more porous than others, and the more porous a natural stone is, the more susceptible it is to staining. Your travertine will be easier to keep clean with periodic professional deep cleaning services, using non-acidic, highly-effective cleaning solutions. Once your travertine is cleaned and restored, we may recommend you have us seal it to enhance its stain resistance. We say, “May” because not all stone needs to be sealed. Highly polished stone may not even take an impregnating sealer. But, if sealing is recommended, know that sealing represents an inexpensive, preventative measure against stain damage, because it buys you time to wipe up spills before they become stains.

Travertine Color Enhancing

Travertine is characterized by its neutral earth tone colors. For certain types of travertine, our skilled technicians can apply an enhancing sealer to intensify the color and enrich its natural beauty.

Travertine Stain Removal

Sometimes, in spite of your best efforts, stains happen. That’s the time to call Bay Shore Cleaning and Restoration. Whether you’re looking for DIY advice or want to hand the mess off to us, we’re happy to tell you that most stains and discolorations can be resolved.

Travertine Repairs

Before you replace your chipped, cracked or otherwise damaged travertine, talk to us about our expert travertine repair services. Bay Shore Cleaning and Restoration can fill holes and fix travertine cracks and chips, blending the repair site with the surrounding area, then honing and polishing it to match the overall finish of the rest of your travertine floor, countertop or other travertine surface.

Replacing Travertine Tiles

It’s rare to find travertine that is damaged so severely it cannot be repaired, but every so often we encounter a tile that just has to be replaced. Bay Shore Cleaning and Restoration can replace your tile, using extra care to avoid damaging neighboring tiles, then level the replacement tile with its neighbors, and match the surrounding finish as closely as possible. Do be aware though — unless you have extra tiles on hand from the original batch, replacement tiles may be noticeably different. Because travertine is a natural stone, even tiles from the same quarry and with the same designation can vary in color and appearance as time passes and the quarry line shifts.

Keeping Your Travertine Looking Great

A common question that we receive is, “How often should marble or travertine floors be polished and sealed?” Depending on the amount of foot traffic, residential floors should be serviced every 12-18 months, while commercial floors require a more frequent maintenance program. Travertine is tricky in that it can come in many different finishes. Due the complex nature of travertine, we recommended you contact our team of experienced technicians to inspect your travertine and offer a floor restoration solution that works best for you. For travertine surfaces with high traffic and use, routinely scheduled maintenance services are highly recommended to keep your travertine looking its best. Bay Shore Cleaning and Restoration is happy to provide these services for you.